My favorite was the space alien who conferred with Bush, Clinton, and Perot before the 1992 elections. As I recall, the alien endorsed Clinton in that election; however, he later became disillusioned by Clinton's corruption and endorsed Dole in 1996.
I wonder if subsidizing the whole election system might not be a better idea. Each candidate gets equal time and advertising (TV, radio, newspaper).
Good luck getting the Republicrat Party to give anything approaching equal time to challengers. What limited success non-anointed political movements have been able to obtain relies upon the areas of election campaigning not (yet?) controlled by the people already in power. /.
The only acceptable model, IMO, is a voluntary checkoff with a write-in designation of the beneficiary (no checkoff boxes, as this constitutes a special preference for the ones listed). /.
It's only relatively recently that the U.S. government has decided that satisfying its curiosity about its own citizens' affairs is more important than protecting their liberty.
I had no idea that history education had deteriorated quite as far as this. The U.S. government has been engaging in such abuses, insofar as they could get away with it, from the early days of the Republic (look up "Alien and Sedition Acts" sometime, and for extra credit study the actions of Attorney General Palmer). /.
The reason the political system is corrupt is that the government has too much power. Nobody is waiting outside my door to offer me thinly disguised bribes in return for favors, because I have few favors to give. If I had the power to tilt economic policy in favor of particular corporations, push through laws against somebody's pet peeve, and otherwise do what politicians do as a matter of course, I too would be beset by supplicants treating me like a wishing well with legs. I like to think that it wouldn't corrupt me, but I wouldn't want to guarantee it over the years. /.
If the the charge to the card is coming from an Online Gambling site, Visa has a pretty good idea what's going on.
Would they know what kind of site it is? Given that gambling is commonly considered to be a vice, I expect that some gambling sites put the charges under innocuous names just as some pr0n sites do. /.
All they have to do is put the simple facts of the case in the credit file (successfully sued to invalidate $70,000 gambling debt), and no credit-card company will touch her with a 10-parsec pole. Truth is an absolute defense to a charge of defamation under US law.
I have an image of Alfred E. Neuman captioned "What -- Me Worry?" right next to this bimbo captioned "What -- Me Responsible?" /.
And the place shuts down at 10PM. The day we moved here, we finished unpacking about 11 and wanted dinner -- tough luck (this is in SE. Georgetown is probably different.)
To give the rest of the world some additional perspective on this, it was just decided that the Metro system will do a trial extension of weekend hours from midnight (the current closing time -- no, I am not making this up) all the way to 1 AM. This was after a big debate between extending weekend hours to 1 AM and the "radical" proposal to extend weekend hours to 2 AM. /.
The "couple of kids" at Waco were armed not only with semi-automatic rifles but also with full auto mods to their weapons and grenades.
Er.... no.
As for the rifles, the government claimed to have found weapons converted to full automatic, but refused to allow non-government experts to verify this evidence. As for the grenades, all that were found were grenade shells that had survived the fire (i.e. were not filled with any active ingredient), and are thus most simply explained as novelty paperweights of the type the Davidians were known to sell as part of their (licensed) firearms business. /.
The tree of liberty must be watered periodically with the blood of tyrants and patriots alike. It is its natural manure. -- Thomas Jefferson
IIRC, this is part of Jefferson's comments concerning the Whiskey Rebellion (which also included the comment "God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.") /.
I can see it now, just to get students to actually write their papers. The teachers are going to require them to be written by hand instead of having them typed.
Computers these days can turn out a decent simulation of handwriting -- what are they going to do to counter that, send the papers to a forensics lab?
Ultimately, it comes down to teachers who can tell the difference between an "A" paper and a kiwi fruit. /.
Pez's point of view is obviously that if someone types "Pez" into a search engine and they get back a bunch of links, a reasonable person might think that the returned sites might be somehow affiliated with Pez. Perhaps they're wrong, but I don't think its unreasonable of them to make the argument.
In fact, such a point of view is unreasonable on its face. For instance, the "Jail to the Chief" stamp site uses "Clinton" as a meta tag, but no one in his right mind would suppose that it might be affiliated with Bill Clinton.
The fact is that any reasonable person typing the name of any corporation, public figure, etc into a search engine would expect to pull up a wide range of sites, including officially sponsored sites, unofficial booster sites, unofficial detractor sites, and neutral review sites. /.
Given that this is obvious bravo sierra (but not far enough over the top to support a "just a joke, folks" defense), does it constitute some form of fraud to publish the statement as a legal advisory? /.
The problem with human beings is that we've removed ourselves from the natural loop. In every case, those natural forces that keep other species healthy, fit, and continuously evolving have been short circuited by man.
You are drawing a false dichotomy in order to draft a meaningless definition of the term "natural". Hoover Dam is every bit as "natural" as a beaver dam -- it was erected by creatures acting upon matter in accordance with the laws of nature, not materialized by eldrich forces. /.
In so doing he rejects the doctrine of double effect (that failing to do something with outcome X can have a different moral character to actively doing something with outcome X)
If he is going to proceed from such a preposterous premise, no wonder he comes to obviously bad results.
Any finite being will, perforce, fail to do an unlimited number of things. Even if I were to live at bare subsistence and give 90% of my income to feed starving Ethiopians, Singerian philosophy would hold me accountable for failure to feed starving Bangledeshis. Since I am not under the delusion that a moral system appropriate to omnipotent deities is applicable to me, I dismiss this conclusion out of hand.
For instance, he argues that the money we spend on luxuries rather than the charity we know would save lives is morally equivalent to killing for luxuries. On this basis he donates 10% of his annual income to charity.
Don't tell me that 90% of the income of a Princeton professor provides no "luxuries". At least not when I'm drinking a soda. (Fortunately, my cat doesn't do laps.) /.
This article basically points out that Singer's own mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but rather than euthanize her (as his philosophy demands), Singer spends thousands of dollars providing her medical care. When asked about this contradiction, Singer rationalizes his actions by saying it provides worthwhile employment for the caregivers!
According to Singer's philosophy, this is not worthwhile employment for the caregivers, any more than digging holes and immediately filling them in again is worthwhile employment for ditch-diggers.
He'd have been better off responding that he doesn't really believe his own arguments, or that he believes them but not to the point of going to prison for acting upon them. /.
From the time of disclosure, you have one year to "patent, or get off the pot". However, if you don't start your filing process either before you disclose, or real darned soon thereafter, someone else can! That is to say, if you show no interest in patenting your work during the post-disclosure window, someone else who sees value in it can patent it.
Nope -- 35 USC 102(f):
Section 102, Conditions for patentability; novelty and loss of right to patent
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless--
(f) he did not himself invent the subject matter sought to be patented
The "U" in "UCE" stands for "Unsolicited". If you subscribe to the vendor's mailing list in order to get upgrade notices, then it's not "unsolicited", now is it?
The one legitimate concern I see is that the rules should be completely content-neutral -- thus, "commercial" should be no part of the definition of spam. The offense should be the sending of UBE (Unsolicited Bulk E-mail), of whatever type. /.
Slashdot Mirror
The real-world version of this statement reads:
These tests have a specific purpose and are never *supposed* to stand on their own, with no other evidence.
/.
The program is just psychological science, no political agenda here, no sirree....
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"I knew it was going to be big... really big."
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Watch for the Return of the Alien Pundit....
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Is this the companion volume to The Attractive Woman's Guide To Avoiding Dilbert?
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Good luck getting the Republicrat Party to give anything approaching equal time to challengers. What limited success non-anointed political movements have been able to obtain relies upon the areas of election campaigning not (yet?) controlled by the people already in power.
/.
The only acceptable model, IMO, is a voluntary checkoff with a write-in designation of the beneficiary (no checkoff boxes, as this constitutes a special preference for the ones listed).
/.
I had no idea that history education had deteriorated quite as far as this. The U.S. government has been engaging in such abuses, insofar as they could get away with it, from the early days of the Republic (look up "Alien and Sedition Acts" sometime, and for extra credit study the actions of Attorney General Palmer).
/.
The reason the political system is corrupt is that the government has too much power. Nobody is waiting outside my door to offer me thinly disguised bribes in return for favors, because I have few favors to give. If I had the power to tilt economic policy in favor of particular corporations, push through laws against somebody's pet peeve, and otherwise do what politicians do as a matter of course, I too would be beset by supplicants treating me like a wishing well with legs. I like to think that it wouldn't corrupt me, but I wouldn't want to guarantee it over the years.
/.
...unless the Big Brother Inside serial number from the PIII is gone, outta here, staked through the heart.
/.
Would they know what kind of site it is? Given that gambling is commonly considered to be a vice, I expect that some gambling sites put the charges under innocuous names just as some pr0n sites do.
/.
I have an image of Alfred E. Neuman captioned "What -- Me Worry?" right next to this bimbo captioned "What -- Me Responsible?"
/.
To give the rest of the world some additional perspective on this, it was just decided that the Metro system will do a trial extension of weekend hours from midnight (the current closing time -- no, I am not making this up) all the way to 1 AM. This was after a big debate between extending weekend hours to 1 AM and the "radical" proposal to extend weekend hours to 2 AM.
/.
Yes; that's why the United States was founded as a Constitutional Republic.
/.
Er.... no.
As for the rifles, the government claimed to have found weapons converted to full automatic, but refused to allow non-government experts to verify this evidence. As for the grenades, all that were found were grenade shells that had survived the fire (i.e. were not filled with any active ingredient), and are thus most simply explained as novelty paperweights of the type the Davidians were known to sell as part of their (licensed) firearms business.
/.
IIRC, this is part of Jefferson's comments concerning the Whiskey Rebellion (which also included the comment "God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.")
/.
Computers these days can turn out a decent simulation of handwriting -- what are they going to do to counter that, send the papers to a forensics lab?
Ultimately, it comes down to teachers who can tell the difference between an "A" paper and a kiwi fruit.
/.
In fact, such a point of view is unreasonable on its face. For instance, the "Jail to the Chief" stamp site uses "Clinton" as a meta tag, but no one in his right mind would suppose that it might be affiliated with Bill Clinton.
The fact is that any reasonable person typing the name of any corporation, public figure, etc into a search engine would expect to pull up a wide range of sites, including officially sponsored sites, unofficial booster sites, unofficial detractor sites, and neutral review sites.
/.
Given that this is obvious bravo sierra (but not far enough over the top to support a "just a joke, folks" defense), does it constitute some form of fraud to publish the statement as a legal advisory?
/.
You are drawing a false dichotomy in order to draft a meaningless definition of the term "natural". Hoover Dam is every bit as "natural" as a beaver dam -- it was erected by creatures acting upon matter in accordance with the laws of nature, not materialized by eldrich forces.
/.
If he is going to proceed from such a preposterous premise, no wonder he comes to obviously bad results.
Any finite being will, perforce, fail to do an unlimited number of things. Even if I were to live at bare subsistence and give 90% of my income to feed starving Ethiopians, Singerian philosophy would hold me accountable for failure to feed starving Bangledeshis. Since I am not under the delusion that a moral system appropriate to omnipotent deities is applicable to me, I dismiss this conclusion out of hand.
For instance, he argues that the money we spend on luxuries rather than the charity we know would save lives is morally equivalent to killing for luxuries. On this basis he donates 10% of his annual income to charity.
Don't tell me that 90% of the income of a Princeton professor provides no "luxuries". At least not when I'm drinking a soda. (Fortunately, my cat doesn't do laps.)
/.
According to Singer's philosophy, this is not worthwhile employment for the caregivers, any more than digging holes and immediately filling them in again is worthwhile employment for ditch-diggers.
He'd have been better off responding that he doesn't really believe his own arguments, or that he believes them but not to the point of going to prison for acting upon them.
/.
Nope -- 35 USC 102(f):
/.
A perpetual extension would be clearly unconstitutional (not that this would necessarily matter to the people in power).
/.
The one legitimate concern I see is that the rules should be completely content-neutral -- thus, "commercial" should be no part of the definition of spam. The offense should be the sending of UBE (Unsolicited Bulk E-mail), of whatever type.
/.