Side note, in response to your sig: I'm a fan of solar (especially space based solar) as well. Sadly, all alternative energy sources seem to get the eventual finger from the fossil fuel fellows, which is why I pin most of the blame on them.
we can estimate a Chernobyl sized event every 40 years if we allow one 50-50 nail biter (such as the incident last year in Sweden) per big event. This means that about 100 sq miles per year of arable land are made essentially permanently uninhabitable.
So lets see, if we use Chernobyl style reactors for 400 years we can expect to lose 400/40*100=1000 square miles of land (roughly the equivalent of Samoa), while if we continue to use fossil fuels for the same period, we'll lose the entire planet, due to runaway global warming.
Seems like a no-brainier to me on that basis.
But there are several assumptions in your statement that deserve addressing:
Chernobyl wasn't a nuclear accident per se; it was a chemical fire, resulting from criminal stupidity in the managing of an ill designed facility. There's no real reason to extrapolate from that situation to what could (and could not) happen with more modern systems. People have died from making cappuccinos, but Starbuck's does not have a major problem with employee mortality, due to the use of better equipment and training.
Reasoning from one forty year period containing one event to conclude that every forty year period will have a similar event (or even that such an event should be expected, on average) is pretty shaky. We shouldn't expect a major tsunami, a daylight visible comet, the destruction of an American city by hurricane, and the vice president of the US shooting an attorney in the face every subsequent five years, even though each of these did happen once in the last five.
The 100 square miles around Chernobyl, while certainly not the safest in the world, are far from being the most dangerous--they are not even, in any realistic sense of the word, uninhabitable.
The worst of the effects are expected to be over within 50 years; hardly "permanent"
This is a little more energy intensive that people have been willing to go so far and may still come up against worries about leaching which killed Yucca Mountain.
What killed Yucca mountain was politics and FUD about leaching, not any actual problems. And as for leaching, in most cases it would be relatively easy to arrange things so that the buried waste leached less than the material did before it was mined in the first place, and less than is presently leaching from the tailing from the original mining operation. And the energy involved in glassification is trivial compared to the output of a generator.
We need some serious solutions to nuclear waste because we have a very serious problem as things stand now.
Serious political problems, yes. But there really isn't a serious technical problem with it. (For just one example, that material could simply be un-mined: ground up, mixed with mine tailings, fused, and put back into the very same hole it was dig out of.)
The problems are political (and often funded by the fossil fuels industry) with a fair smattering of educational (e.g. an amazing number of people think that longer half life means more dangerous instead of safer). The hypocrisy of the fossil fuel industry is rather amazing in this regard; here we have an industry that routinely vents it's waste into the atmosphere, with probable long term consequences far, far worse than even the most unlikely nuclear FUD story, but they even daily release more radioactive waste (mostly C14) than nuclear plants are permitted to.
Think about that. There isn't a coal fired power plant in the country that wouldn't be shut down tomorrow if they were held to the same standards as nuclear plants are under the laws enacted by the pro-fossil fuels lobbies and their pet congress critters. When the fossil fuel industry reaches 99.99% carbon sequestration and cuts their radioactive emissions down to something legal, then let's talk about the "serious" waste management problems facing the nuclear industry.
They trust all the fruits of science but think they can safely discard the mental model that created those fruits.
You may be giving them too much credit for thinking. By and large, these people are PWIFs (People With Imaginary Friends) of one form or another, and once we have established that they are willing to accept internally inconsistent world views on the basis of no proof whatsoever (or, as they say, "on faith")--and often base their life around such world views--is it really fair to expect them to be logically consistent in their treatment of science?
We should probably just be glad when they don't morph into the form that thinks their imaginary friend wants them to blow up bus stops, pubs, or abortion clinics.
I note, in passing, that you still haven't addressed the key issue--you have offered absolutely no substantiation of your oft repeated claim that the bill would have regulated free speech in any way shape or form (simply repeating the claim and wringing your hands about the consequences doesn't make it true--or convince anyone with half a brain).
But since a "no I can't substantiate the claim" isn't your style, and you appear to be as stumped as I am about how to prop up your irrational arguments, you seem to have hit upon the only half-way decent strategy: introduce even more illogical arguments and throw out some addition unsubstantiated claims to muddy the waters.
For example:
Speech is involved, therefore speech is being regulated
That's inevitable by the wording of the law in question: "stimulating grassroots lobbying" is impossible without speech. You're attempting to logically separate the monetary exchange from the activity being contracted for, but that makes no sense, legally or logically.
This would be a great argument if it stood up to even a moment's scrutiny. Suppose you are accused of soliciting an act of prostitution. Not a problem. Soliciting prostitution is impossible without speech, therefore the laws against it are unconstitutional. Oh and you're also charged with verbally assaulting the arresting officer? No problem. Verbal assult isn't possible without speech, so that one's out the window too.
Let me know how that works out for you.
Not all "stimulation of grassroots lobbying" is astroturfing so therefore none of it is lobbying.
You seem to be taking the position that all "stimulation of grassroots lobbying" is astroturfing, and you're treating this amendment as though it were designed to regulate astroturfing, not stimulation of grassroots lobbying. [...]Plenty of perfectly honest and legitimate groups, across the political spectrum, communicate their perspective via blogs (and other means), and encourage people to contact their representatives. Not all such efforts are astroturfing, even if money changes hands.
If the law said what misrepresent it as saying, some innocent woman who decided to become a lobbyist might be put in a situation that sounds like Soviet Russia to me, so my claim must be correct.
Take, for example, the woman described in this article. [...] here we have a passionate citizen, who (if you read to the end of the article) succeeds in getting people to contact their representatives [... she] decides to start soliciting payment [...] finds five organizations willing to pay her $5000 each to [...] encourage people to contact their representatives. At that point she would become a lobbyist [...] and would have to register with the federal government, comply with most of the laws that are supposed to apply to lobbyists [...] I find that prospect utterly abhorrent. It sounds like Soviet Russia, or a science fiction dystopia novel to me.
If laws like the one pretending this one is were passed, we'll never know what can happen.
I know what this law was really about.
Transparency is a good thing, and I'm completely in favor of that, but this law wasn't about transparency, it was about control.
Uh, where do you see that?
If you are going to respond again, please don't bother with the blather, just answer the question from six level back or admit that you are talking through your hat.
If this is true, and the pricing will be based on the actual cost to produce them and the number sold will be determined by how many people are willing to buy them at that price (supply and demand, anyone?) without all sorts of shell game market manipulation, the headline should read:
Apple Turning Cell Phone Market Right Side Up
It's sad that we've gotten to the point that a rational straight forward pricing model, without games, is considered "upside down."
It sounds like we are very much of the same mind. I'm a fiscal, small government and "no foreign entanglements" conservative. For the first time in my life I voted a straight Democratic ticket, not so much because I agree with much the party has to say but because I hate what Bush & Co. are doing to our country.
As for the Republicans "misexecuting" their platform, I'd more say that they sold out to the neocons and the PWIFs and are executing their joint plan perfectly; the PWIFs want to bring about the end times, and the neocons want a permanent state of war to feed their oil and money pump. They're both getting what they asked for, while the bulk of the party gets exactly what the Democrats got (except we're supposed to smile and like it). Uh, no.
Sentiments like yours, where you attempt to twist the Sovereign Law of the United States around to fit your own personal
agenda, are as evil as theirs. Reconsider.
Mind you, I'd agree if you'd said "we'd all be better off if he were DEAD." That's different. You just can't twist the Constitution around the way you are and claim to hold it sacred in the same breath.
I'm not twisting a single solitary thing here. I'm just pointing out the logical consequences of their absurd positions.
But yes, I recognize that this is disingenuous. It's like the joke about the mother who told her son "Stop pulling the cat's tail!" to which the boy replies "Mom, I'm just holding on, the cat is doing all the pulling."
For example:
Although they claim we are "at war" we are not; there has not been a declaration of war as required by the constitution.
Although Bush has made a number of statements about the present situation which could be used to construct a treason trap of the sort I have outlined, including making them to Congress (which would be a felony if they were done with intent to deceive), I doubt that even he believes them
While Alberto Gonzales is in fact the Attorney General, and his legal opinions would, in the normal course of affairs carry enough weight to represent a serious (if not sustainable) threat to our legal system I doubt seriously that he has sufficient credibility at this point to matter much
Although Bush has claimed that he has the right to designate who is an "enemy combatant" I doubt that this claim would hold up in court
Further, the fact that his rabble rousing blather does in fact indite Gonzales would not, in any case, matter. Although he acts at times as if he thinks he's King instead of President, we have come a long way from "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"
My point being, of course, that the conclusion is obviously faulty but the problem lies not with my logic but with the positions adopted by the present administration. If we really were at war with the enemy described by the president and the executive branch really did have the powers they claim then yes, logically Gonzales would clearly be guilty of treason.
If it doesn't make a significant difference in your sales -- easily measurable -- you won't continue to pay for it. Even stupid people know when they're losing money.
You might get a steady stream of first-timers who fall for the lure of sending spam, but the volume would be a trickle compared to what we have today.
You are correct, in principle. As soon as the supply of stupid people dries up, it would slow to a trickle. But how long will that take?
If you want to get an idea of how much spam would get sent even in that trickle, grab a copy of every daily paper on the planet and count up all the prayers to St. Jude and so forth in the classifieds. Multiply that number by the number of addresses in a typical spam list and that should give you a rough estimate of the amount of spam that would still be getting sent each day even if it didn't work.
My back of the envelope estimate puts it at around 1,000,000,000,000 individual pieces of spam a day, put I'll admit I only looked at a few papers and extrapolated. Another way of looking at it: if only one person in a million is dumb enough to send a piece of spam each day even knowing it would not work, and they send it to a million people, there would be 6,500,000,000 pieces sent every day.
And 0.00001% of the population may be a low-ball estimate of how many dumb people there are. I suspect the actual number is somewhat higher.
Even if no one ever responds, it won't stop as long as the people paying to have it sent think it works. It's like burning candles to St. Balderdash for scam marketing morons. As long as there is a steady supply of rubes who think that sending spam is their road to riches, and are willing to pay some brighter but no more honest spam lord to send their dreck to a bazillion hapless victims for them, spam will contine to flow.
This is true even if no one ever responds to, falls for, or even opens a spam message ever again.
I was quite serious. The Constitution doesn't make it Treason to have an idiotic interpretation of the Constitution.
No, of course it doesn't.
But it does make it treason to give aid and comfort to our nations enemies durring time of war.
And if, by the explicit statements of both the President of the United States and Congress, we are at war with a group of people who are only distinguished by having a certain set of goals, someone doing the only thing that could realistically accomplish those goals is, quite clearly, giving them aid and comfort and thus committing treason.
Being an idiot about the constitution isn't treason. Obtaining a position of trust and authority in the US Government and using it to further the goals of our enemies in time of war is.
Without trying to belabor this more than it needs, one of the problems with trying to read/interpret legislation like this that is in the process of being drafted and ammended is that it is very much a moving target. While at one point it may be exactly as you suggest that only highly paid lobbyists need concern themselves with this, that, or the other thing, other incarnations are much more inflamatory and concern private citizens and indeed require formal registration.
Can you point me to the text of any such revision of the bill in question?
BTW, the analogy with lawyers and the various bar associations, while true, is flawed so far as I would hope and pray that nothing of the sort ever gets created for journalists and those who want to engage in political speech.
Nice spin. The analogy was about people who exercise the rights of others, by proxy. As you note, the rights of journalists (and citizens who engage in political speech, peacefully assemble, etc.) are being exercised by the people who have those rights in the first place. I find it difficult to imagine how I could exercise my own rights by proxy, but I suspect it would probably be painful, so I too hope and pray the concept of doing something proxy is never stretched and twisted to the extent you attempted to abuse my analogy.
Collecting and spending money from like-mined individuals to further the goals of that group is by definition political activity. I fail to see the constitutional basis and justification for doing any sort of regulation of this kind of activity.
Agreed. I also hope they never try passing a law mandating nipple piercing for people who make sarcastic remarks. Fortunately, I've yet to see any evidence that either of these was included in any draft of the bill in question.
Four levels back, I challenged anyone to point out where, specifically the bill would have had any impact on free speech.
When I pointed out that your last response was just smoke and mirrors and didn't answer the question you came back with...
Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in the landmark decision, Schenk v. U.S. (1919)...
...and then just repeated your claim. I doubt seriously that Mr. Holmes has ever read the bill in question, since it was just written this year and he has been dead for some time. But even if he had somehow gotten a hold of a copy (from H. G. Wells maybe?), the quote you cite doesn't mention it.
See Section 222. But if you had really wanted to know instead of just trying not to be wrong, I guess you could have Googled for it
Why not just quote it in full right here? It's not that long:
SEC. 222. ADDITIONAL LOBBYING DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS.
Section 5(b) of the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (2 U.S.C. 1604(b)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
``(8) a certification that the lobbying firm, or registrant, and each employee listed as a lobbyist under section 4(b)(6) or 5(b)(2)(C) for that lobbying firm or registrant, has not provided, requested, or directed a gift, including travel, to a Member or employee of Congress in violation rule XXXV of the Standing Rules of the Senate or rule XXV of the Rules of the House of Representatives.''.
...oh, I see. Perhaps you didn't quote it in full because it has nothing to do with free speech and that would have been obvious to everyone if you had provided more than just a link and a snotty remark?
And from this (and nothing else, that I can see) you conclude "it *is* restricting political speech"
Yeah, we wouldn't want to take the opinion of experts over yours. But anyway, what more do you want? The gov't would be placing restrictions, with possible jail time for not "having your papers in order" before engaging in certain types of political speech. That does not fit the definition of "free" (meaning unrestricted) that we normally apply to speech. The "restriction" is that you have to register or go to jail. You may not have a problem with that, but I do.
First off, you don't need experts to see when something is illogical, which is what I was pointing out. In fact, such appeal to authority is generally considered a logical error.
Secondly, what expert are you talking about? How about a UCLA law professor that agrees with me?
Finally, your question-begging statement "The gov't would be placing restrictions, with possible jail time for not "having your papers in order" before engaging in certain types of political speech." is exactly what I'm challenging you to substantiate, from primary sources (e.g., the bill). Simply restating it doesn't serve, will not make it true, and if anything serves to further my conviction that you not only know that what you are saying is wrong but are actively working to perpetuate this meme, knowing it to be false.
The word is "non sequitur" and you don't know how to apply it any more than you know how to spell it.
You are correct, I misspelled it in my irritation; I also missed a closing tag on my list. As for applying it, how about an example:
Have you never heard the term "legal opinion?" In other words, current opinions and previous expert opinions have weight in a court of law. Since we are talking about a legal matter that is less than explicit (like abortion, the right to privacy, separation of Church and State) what else would we go on?
This is a perfect example of a non sequitur right here--a reply that has no relevance to what pre
I challenge anyone to point out where, specifically the bill would have had any impact on free speech.
You quote a section of the bill that prohibits imprisoning people for more than ten years (but doesn't say for what)
You then say it's no wonder lots of people were against it
And from this (and nothing else, that I can see) you conclude "it *is* restricting political speech"
Care to try again?
--MarkusQ
P.S. If you're stumped, you may want to try switching to something like "Think of the Underwear Gnomes!" It won't be any more convincing than "Think of the Bloggers!" but it might be a refreshing change of herring.
Re:Why haven't these fascist assholes been impeached
The only crime that I know of that the Constitution expressly spells out is the crime of Treason. It's definition wouldn't include the holding to idiotic interpretations of the Constitution itself, alas.
You can't be serious. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Watch.
From the US Constitution:
Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
Americans are asking, why do they hate us? [...]They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. [...] These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life [...] They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions -- by abandoning every value except the will to power -- they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism.
And finally, From TFA:
Gonzales argued that the Constitution doesn't explicitly bestow habeas corpus rights; it merely says when the so-called Great Writ can be suspended.
"There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution; there's a prohibition against taking it away," Gonzales said. [...] "The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended" except in cases of rebellion or invasion."
"You may be treading on your interdiction of violating common sense," Specter said.
While Gonzales's statement has a measure of quibbling precision to it, his logic is troubling because it would suggest that many other fundamental rights that Americans hold dear also don't exist because the Constitution often spells out those rights in the negative.
Applying Gonzales's reasoning, one could argue that the First Amendment doesn't explicitly say Americans have the right to worship as they choose, speak as they wish or assemble peacefully. The amendment simply bars the government, i.e. Congress, from passing laws that would impinge on these rights.
but check their post history and see if they were so exercised when the Senate tried to control certain types of paid political speech by bloggers
I hate to break it to you, but the defeat of Section 220 of S1 was not a shining victory for bloggerdom. It was grossly misrepresented by a targeted astroturfing campaign designed to bring about exactly what happened; a bunch of outrage from people who read the spin but never read the bill. It had nothing to do with free speech, but that didn't stop the spinmasters from using it as a hot button to drum up opposition to a law that they wanted stopped.
And before you come back and say "it was so about speech" go read the bill and tell me where, exactly, is the part where any fine, penalty, requirement or restriction can be triggered by any act of free speech--posting on a blog, yodeling from your roof top, or passing out pamphlets on the street corner, whatever you wish. It isn't there.
If you are still barking up this tree you need to face the facts: you were pwned.
--MarkusQ
P.S. I pretty much agree with everything else you said.
Given MarkusQ's persistance in this debate and the YouTube link in his signature, I can come to only one conclusion: MarkusQ is an astroturfer for the Socialist Establishment. He must be teaming up with the aliens who tried to probe me.
*laugh* Not even close.
I'm a charter member of the "Republicans who hate Bush" club, a fiscal conservative who doesn't believe that corporations are "people" and doesn't like being lied to. At this very moment I'm sitting in a room full of boxes which I hope will soon be shipped back to the US, with me to follow shortly. I've got no TV, no radio, and most of my books are either in storage or in the aforementioned boxes, so I'm cruising the tubes and standing up for logic, truth, and The American Way while I wait. No one is paying me to do this. There are some crazy people out there, but not that crazy.
--MarkusQ
P.S. I shouldn't just single out Bush. I also can't stand his buddy Lieberman, McCain, Hillary Clinton, Cheney, Kerry, Rahm Emanuel,...well, let's just say that there aren't a lot of elected officials these days that I do like.
Emanuel got a friend elected by working the system into putting him into a sport that he then timed a leak to make sure race.
Where "working the system" means sitting on evidence of a felony committed by a member of the US House of Representatives?
I suppose that by those sorts of standards things like blackmail and even bank robbery could be written off as just "working the system"?
The fact that in doing so he also betrayed the people of Florida, his own party (except of course any that have sold out along with him), and his oath of office, which I suppose is just frosting on the cake when you're playing at that level.
The people are sheep. The are just voting based on an animal logo. They have no will. They are playing themselves.
Let me get this straight--you're saying in effect it's OK to lie to them because they are ignorant and make ill-informed choices? Did it ever occur to you that maybe they wouldn't be so blind and foolish if their leaders didn't get away with lying to them at every turn? I'm just saying.
There may very well not be any other examples of this situtation. It's a pretty unique situation,
It's not the situation that's unique, it's your interpretation.
You are proposing a novel theory of how the world works, and I was asking for an example (any example) of where it works like you seem to think it does. Are you admitting that you can't think of any either? If that is the case, on what basis to you support the claim that your interpretation should be taken seriously?
Because, if you can't come up with something more plausible, the rest of the "think of the children--I mean, think of the Constitution!" structure falls flat on it's face.
I don't agree that you've shown anything about the factual incorrectness of the point about free speech. A relevant court decision might do so. However, courts have upheld the connection between money and speech, for example, which is why it's difficult to place legal limits on campaign financing.
It isn't a legal issue, it's simple logic. There are four variables:
W = writes or says something/does not write or say anything,
C = charges / does not charge a client for astroturfing,
R = Registers / does not register within 45 days,
S = subject to penalties under the bill as proposed.
This gives 16 possible cases, and if you work them out and solve for S you will see that W (the free speech question) doesn't enter into it at all.
S = C and not R
The only people who would be subject to any penalties would be people who charged a client to astroturf on their behalf but did not register that fact within forty five days. This is true regardless of whether they said or wrote or did not say or write anything whatsoever, on any topic.
Your argument that the bill is independent of whether you say or write anything seems simply disingenuous to me. The argument only appears to succeed by focusing on a narrow aspect of the situation, and ignoring the inevitable effects of the bill. Courts can't be so selective in how they interpret the law, particularly the Constitution.
It only appears to succeed by focusing on what the bill actually said, and ignoring Richard Viguerie's misrepresentation of it. I don't know what you mean "courts can't be so selective", but I do know they tend to read the law itself and ignore what shills write about it, same as I try to.
n the scenario I've described multiple times, a person who is writing out of conviction, but who accepts sufficient financial support for that writing from anyone who might otherwise have hired a lobbyist, would find themselves in the position of having to register federally as a lobbyist.
No they would not -- unless they specifically billed a client for pushing certain issues, they would not be affected. The bill was quite clear that they could accept donations, take ads, be supported by their readers or members of an organization for which they wrote, etc. even if they earned millions of dollars doing so, and it would not affect their status.
Unless they are charging money specifically for pushing that particular agenda, it's a non-issue. But if they are, then yes, they are lobbying.
No, they're not. Lobbying is a regulated activity that involves dealing with public officials.
Can you give me even one example of a regulated activity (anything requiring licensing, registration, etc. or which is prohibited by law, requires certification of some sort, or inspection or record keeping, etc.) where you can hire someone to do the activity on your behalf, or even trick or cajole them into doing it for you, and as a consequence neither you or they are subject to any sort of regulation?
One case? Under US law, or in any other legal system you can cite?
I'm not saying that anyone that disagrees with me is an astroturfer. I'm saying that that I do not understand why you persist in treating this as a free speech controversy when it clearly, demonstrably, was not and the point has been made to you, over and over, by several people, myself included.
The section in question had nothing to do with speech and everything to do with taking money. As I've explained several times, the provisions were completely independent of whether you even say or write anything (you would have been required to register for taking $30,000 to send a million e-mails, even if you never sent the e-mails). Conversely, you could say and write whatever you wished, and earn as much money as you cared to from your blog (or spam farm, or whatever) so long as you never took money from clients for specifically urging people to contact their congress critters.
You never seem to respond to this point, instead just ignoring it in your response or popping up elsewhere with essentially the same "it's all about free speech" claim.
Why is that?
When you get to the point of thinking that you're so unequivocally right about your position that there must be something wrong with anyone who disagrees with you,...[amusing attempt at a smear job snipped]
OK, so disagree. I've shown that they are logically independent (with full links to the text of the bill in the earlier cases). Can you offer some logical, fact based argument to the contrary? Because I'm not claiming that you have disagreed with me; I'm claiming you have persisted in making factually incorrect statements long after it has been pointed out to you that they are factually incorrect. There's a difference.
The problem is you're tarring all people in that situation with the same brush. To follow your example, Bob and everyone else who delivers packages would have to register his package delivery with the DEA, or something, because they might contain drugs.
Not at all. Bob and the UPS play the roll of the astroturf "blog"'s readers who are duped into contacting their legislators by the astroturfer's lies (here played by Alice the drug smuggler). There is no restriction at all on them.
Remember my Al Gore example? If you have someone who's blogging on a subject that they feel strongly about, and some lobbyists who supports their position decides they want to support them, as soon as the money involved adds up to enough, the moral blogger in question becomes a lobbyist, subject to lobbying regulations. I don't agree with that, and I do consider it a restriction on free speech.
Do you remember my response? Unless they are charging money specifically for pushing that particular agenda, it's a non-issue. But if they are, then yes, they are lobbying. To see the problem, let's look at the same structure in a slightly different context:
If you have someone who's writing favorable reviews of a product that they feel strongly about, and the manufacturer of the product decides they want to support them, as soon as the money involved adds up to enough, the previously moral reviewer in question becomes a shill...
Having paid spokespeople pretend to be independent isn't free speech, it's fraud. And no one, in any of this is saying that they can't write whatever they want, or that they can't be paid, only that they can't be paid under the table. Free speech is about being able to say whatever you want, not about being able to say whatever you are paid to say without revealing that you're only saying it because you were paid. That's why ads that look too much like news articles have a little box printed around them saying "advertisement" and why Google ads are set off in a different color and why actors who endorse products have to say things like "I'm not a Doctor, even though I do play one on television" before they sell snake oil.
...laws which have the effect of inhibiting people from accepting money for certain kinds of blogging, or other PR activities...
Again with the misrepresentation. This is just flat out illogical, unless you are claiming that 1) everything is on the up and up and 2) they won't get paid unless they keep it a secret.
You can't have it both ways; either everything is fine, in which case having public record of the transaction shouldn't be a problem, or the whole enterprise depends on it being done under the table, in which case I don't see how you can justify the position that everything is hunky-dory. And before you start off on any red herrings, remember that the law specifically excluded things like donations from members of an organization, ad revenue, pay received by employees writing on behalf of an organization, etc.
Seems to me you might have a problem distinguishing them from people who have a legitimate problem with the amendment.
That is an interesting point. I assume you are talking about people like yourself, who persist in raising essentially the same objections even after it has been repeatedly pointed out (and, in some cases, conceded) that they are misrepresenting the issue at hand? I must admit that I am puzzled about this myself. From your posts on other topics you don't seem like an astroturfer, but yet you have persisted in posting the same misleading spin on this topic time and time again.
One problem with section 220, though, is that it would have required the PR firm in your example to register as a lobbyist if they met the income threshold, even though they have no direct contact with public officials.
That's the whole point. If Alice in Acapulco asks Bob to drop a package off at Carol's house in Chicago, and unbeknownst to Bob the package is full of drugs, isn't Alice responsible even though she had no "direct contact" with the drugs? If Dave hires Eddie to kill Frank, is Dave in the clear because he has no "direct contact" with Frank? If a PR firm creates a blog or some other form of astroturfing operation full of (possibly inaccurate) information and urges people to contact their congress critters on the basis of it, aren't they lobbying just as surely as if they had hand delivered the stuff themselves?
And? Science is science, it doesn't matter who pays for it, what matters is _are they right_?
But a bunch of writers putting words in the mouth of a fictional "scientist" is not science.
Free speech is either absolute or non-existent; you can't put restrictions on who can say what and then claim you have free speech.
And a strawman is a strawman no matter how many times you raise it. There was nothing about free speech in the bill. No speech acts were restricted, in any way shape or form. The provision clearly and specifically required people / organizations to register if they went into the business of shilling, whether or not they ever wrote or said anything to the public (they could, for example, have defrauded their clients by never even setting up a blog or sending out the spam or whatever). Conversely, there was absolutely no requirement of any kind placed on people who were not hiring themselves out as paid shills.
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Side note, in response to your sig: I'm a fan of solar (especially space based solar) as well. Sadly, all alternative energy sources seem to get the eventual finger from the fossil fuel fellows, which is why I pin most of the blame on them.
So lets see, if we use Chernobyl style reactors for 400 years we can expect to lose 400/40*100=1000 square miles of land (roughly the equivalent of Samoa), while if we continue to use fossil fuels for the same period, we'll lose the entire planet, due to runaway global warming.
Seems like a no-brainier to me on that basis.
But there are several assumptions in your statement that deserve addressing:
What killed Yucca mountain was politics and FUD about leaching, not any actual problems. And as for leaching, in most cases it would be relatively easy to arrange things so that the buried waste leached less than the material did before it was mined in the first place, and less than is presently leaching from the tailing from the original mining operation. And the energy involved in glassification is trivial compared to the output of a generator.
--MarkusQ
Serious political problems, yes. But there really isn't a serious technical problem with it. (For just one example, that material could simply be un-mined: ground up, mixed with mine tailings, fused, and put back into the very same hole it was dig out of.)
The problems are political (and often funded by the fossil fuels industry) with a fair smattering of educational (e.g. an amazing number of people think that longer half life means more dangerous instead of safer). The hypocrisy of the fossil fuel industry is rather amazing in this regard; here we have an industry that routinely vents it's waste into the atmosphere, with probable long term consequences far, far worse than even the most unlikely nuclear FUD story, but they even daily release more radioactive waste (mostly C14) than nuclear plants are permitted to.
Think about that. There isn't a coal fired power plant in the country that wouldn't be shut down tomorrow if they were held to the same standards as nuclear plants are under the laws enacted by the pro-fossil fuels lobbies and their pet congress critters. When the fossil fuel industry reaches 99.99% carbon sequestration and cuts their radioactive emissions down to something legal, then let's talk about the "serious" waste management problems facing the nuclear industry.
--MarkusQ
You may be giving them too much credit for thinking. By and large, these people are PWIFs (People With Imaginary Friends) of one form or another, and once we have established that they are willing to accept internally inconsistent world views on the basis of no proof whatsoever (or, as they say, "on faith")--and often base their life around such world views--is it really fair to expect them to be logically consistent in their treatment of science?
We should probably just be glad when they don't morph into the form that thinks their imaginary friend wants them to blow up bus stops, pubs, or abortion clinics.
--MarkusQ
*sigh*
I note, in passing, that you still haven't addressed the key issue--you have offered absolutely no substantiation of your oft repeated claim that the bill would have regulated free speech in any way shape or form (simply repeating the claim and wringing your hands about the consequences doesn't make it true--or convince anyone with half a brain).
But since a "no I can't substantiate the claim" isn't your style, and you appear to be as stumped as I am about how to prop up your irrational arguments, you seem to have hit upon the only half-way decent strategy: introduce even more illogical arguments and throw out some addition unsubstantiated claims to muddy the waters.
For example:
This would be a great argument if it stood up to even a moment's scrutiny. Suppose you are accused of soliciting an act of prostitution. Not a problem. Soliciting prostitution is impossible without speech, therefore the laws against it are unconstitutional. Oh and you're also charged with verbally assaulting the arresting officer? No problem. Verbal assult isn't possible without speech, so that one's out the window too.
Let me know how that works out for you.
Uh, where do you see that?
If you are going to respond again, please don't bother with the blather, just answer the question from six level back or admit that you are talking through your hat.
--MarkusQ
If this is true, and the pricing will be based on the actual cost to produce them and the number sold will be determined by how many people are willing to buy them at that price (supply and demand, anyone?) without all sorts of shell game market manipulation, the headline should read:
Apple Turning Cell Phone Market Right Side Up
It's sad that we've gotten to the point that a rational straight forward pricing model, without games, is considered "upside down."
--MarkusQ
It sounds like we are very much of the same mind. I'm a fiscal, small government and "no foreign entanglements" conservative. For the first time in my life I voted a straight Democratic ticket, not so much because I agree with much the party has to say but because I hate what Bush & Co. are doing to our country.
As for the Republicans "misexecuting" their platform, I'd more say that they sold out to the neocons and the PWIFs and are executing their joint plan perfectly; the PWIFs want to bring about the end times, and the neocons want a permanent state of war to feed their oil and money pump. They're both getting what they asked for, while the bulk of the party gets exactly what the Democrats got (except we're supposed to smile and like it). Uh, no.
--MarkusQ
I'm not twisting a single solitary thing here. I'm just pointing out the logical consequences of their absurd positions.
But yes, I recognize that this is disingenuous. It's like the joke about the mother who told her son "Stop pulling the cat's tail!" to which the boy replies "Mom, I'm just holding on, the cat is doing all the pulling."
For example:
My point being, of course, that the conclusion is obviously faulty but the problem lies not with my logic but with the positions adopted by the present administration. If we really were at war with the enemy described by the president and the executive branch really did have the powers they claim then yes, logically Gonzales would clearly be guilty of treason.
--MarkusQ
You are correct, in principle. As soon as the supply of stupid people dries up, it would slow to a trickle. But how long will that take?
If you want to get an idea of how much spam would get sent even in that trickle, grab a copy of every daily paper on the planet and count up all the prayers to St. Jude and so forth in the classifieds. Multiply that number by the number of addresses in a typical spam list and that should give you a rough estimate of the amount of spam that would still be getting sent each day even if it didn't work.
My back of the envelope estimate puts it at around 1,000,000,000,000 individual pieces of spam a day, put I'll admit I only looked at a few papers and extrapolated. Another way of looking at it: if only one person in a million is dumb enough to send a piece of spam each day even knowing it would not work, and they send it to a million people, there would be 6,500,000,000 pieces sent every day.
And 0.00001% of the population may be a low-ball estimate of how many dumb people there are. I suspect the actual number is somewhat higher.
--MarkusQ
Even if no one ever responds, it won't stop as long as the people paying to have it sent think it works. It's like burning candles to St. Balderdash for scam marketing morons. As long as there is a steady supply of rubes who think that sending spam is their road to riches, and are willing to pay some brighter but no more honest spam lord to send their dreck to a bazillion hapless victims for them, spam will contine to flow.
This is true even if no one ever responds to, falls for, or even opens a spam message ever again.
--MarkusQ
No, of course it doesn't.
But it does make it treason to give aid and comfort to our nations enemies durring time of war.
And if, by the explicit statements of both the President of the United States and Congress, we are at war with a group of people who are only distinguished by having a certain set of goals, someone doing the only thing that could realistically accomplish those goals is, quite clearly, giving them aid and comfort and thus committing treason.
Being an idiot about the constitution isn't treason. Obtaining a position of trust and authority in the US Government and using it to further the goals of our enemies in time of war is.
--MarkusQ
Can you point me to the text of any such revision of the bill in question?
Nice spin. The analogy was about people who exercise the rights of others, by proxy. As you note, the rights of journalists (and citizens who engage in political speech, peacefully assemble, etc.) are being exercised by the people who have those rights in the first place. I find it difficult to imagine how I could exercise my own rights by proxy, but I suspect it would probably be painful, so I too hope and pray the concept of doing something proxy is never stretched and twisted to the extent you attempted to abuse my analogy.
Agreed. I also hope they never try passing a law mandating nipple piercing for people who make sarcastic remarks. Fortunately, I've yet to see any evidence that either of these was included in any draft of the bill in question.
--MarkusQ
Four levels back, I challenged anyone to point out where, specifically the bill would have had any impact on free speech.
When I pointed out that your last response was just smoke and mirrors and didn't answer the question you came back with...
...and then just repeated your claim. I doubt seriously that Mr. Holmes has ever read the bill in question, since it was just written this year and he has been dead for some time. But even if he had somehow gotten a hold of a copy (from H. G. Wells maybe?), the quote you cite doesn't mention it.
Why not just quote it in full right here? It's not that long:
...oh, I see. Perhaps you didn't quote it in full because it has nothing to do with free speech and that would have been obvious to everyone if you had provided more than just a link and a snotty remark?
First off, you don't need experts to see when something is illogical, which is what I was pointing out. In fact, such appeal to authority is generally considered a logical error.
Secondly, what expert are you talking about? How about a UCLA law professor that agrees with me?
Finally, your question-begging statement "The gov't would be placing restrictions, with possible jail time for not "having your papers in order" before engaging in certain types of political speech." is exactly what I'm challenging you to substantiate, from primary sources (e.g., the bill). Simply restating it doesn't serve, will not make it true, and if anything serves to further my conviction that you not only know that what you are saying is wrong but are actively working to perpetuate this meme, knowing it to be false.
You are correct, I misspelled it in my irritation; I also missed a closing tag on my list. As for applying it, how about an example:
This is a perfect example of a non sequitur right here--a reply that has no relevance to what pre
Let's recap, shall we?
Care to try again?
--MarkusQ
P.S. If you're stumped, you may want to try switching to something like "Think of the Underwear Gnomes!" It won't be any more convincing than "Think of the Bloggers!" but it might be a refreshing change of herring.
You can't be serious. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Watch.
From the US Constitution:
From Our Wartime President Himself:
And finally, From TFA:
There, that wasn't so hard, was it?
--MarkusQ
I hate to break it to you, but the defeat of Section 220 of S1 was not a shining victory for bloggerdom. It was grossly misrepresented by a targeted astroturfing campaign designed to bring about exactly what happened; a bunch of outrage from people who read the spin but never read the bill. It had nothing to do with free speech, but that didn't stop the spinmasters from using it as a hot button to drum up opposition to a law that they wanted stopped.
And before you come back and say "it was so about speech" go read the bill and tell me where, exactly, is the part where any fine, penalty, requirement or restriction can be triggered by any act of free speech--posting on a blog, yodeling from your roof top, or passing out pamphlets on the street corner, whatever you wish. It isn't there.
If you are still barking up this tree you need to face the facts: you were pwned.
--MarkusQ
P.S. I pretty much agree with everything else you said.
*laugh* Not even close.
I'm a charter member of the "Republicans who hate Bush" club, a fiscal conservative who doesn't believe that corporations are "people" and doesn't like being lied to. At this very moment I'm sitting in a room full of boxes which I hope will soon be shipped back to the US, with me to follow shortly. I've got no TV, no radio, and most of my books are either in storage or in the aforementioned boxes, so I'm cruising the tubes and standing up for logic, truth, and The American Way while I wait. No one is paying me to do this. There are some crazy people out there, but not that crazy.
--MarkusQ
P.S. I shouldn't just single out Bush. I also can't stand his buddy Lieberman, McCain, Hillary Clinton, Cheney, Kerry, Rahm Emanuel,...well, let's just say that there aren't a lot of elected officials these days that I do like.
Where "working the system" means sitting on evidence of a felony committed by a member of the US House of Representatives?
I suppose that by those sorts of standards things like blackmail and even bank robbery could be written off as just "working the system"?
The fact that in doing so he also betrayed the people of Florida, his own party (except of course any that have sold out along with him), and his oath of office, which I suppose is just frosting on the cake when you're playing at that level.
Let me get this straight--you're saying in effect it's OK to lie to them because they are ignorant and make ill-informed choices? Did it ever occur to you that maybe they wouldn't be so blind and foolish if their leaders didn't get away with lying to them at every turn? I'm just saying.
--MarkusQ
It's not the situation that's unique, it's your interpretation.
You are proposing a novel theory of how the world works, and I was asking for an example (any example) of where it works like you seem to think it does. Are you admitting that you can't think of any either? If that is the case, on what basis to you support the claim that your interpretation should be taken seriously?
Because, if you can't come up with something more plausible, the rest of the "think of the children--I mean, think of the Constitution!" structure falls flat on it's face.
--MarkusQ
It isn't a legal issue, it's simple logic. There are four variables:
This gives 16 possible cases, and if you work them out and solve for S you will see that W (the free speech question) doesn't enter into it at all.
S = C and not R
The only people who would be subject to any penalties would be people who charged a client to astroturf on their behalf but did not register that fact within forty five days. This is true regardless of whether they said or wrote or did not say or write anything whatsoever, on any topic.
It only appears to succeed by focusing on what the bill actually said, and ignoring Richard Viguerie's misrepresentation of it. I don't know what you mean "courts can't be so selective", but I do know they tend to read the law itself and ignore what shills write about it, same as I try to.
No they would not -- unless they specifically billed a client for pushing certain issues, they would not be affected. The bill was quite clear that they could accept donations, take ads, be supported by their readers or members of an organization for which they wrote, etc. even if they earned millions of dollars doing so, and it would not affect their status.
--MarkusQ
Can you give me even one example of a regulated activity (anything requiring licensing, registration, etc. or which is prohibited by law, requires certification of some sort, or inspection or record keeping, etc.) where you can hire someone to do the activity on your behalf, or even trick or cajole them into doing it for you, and as a consequence neither you or they are subject to any sort of regulation?
One case? Under US law, or in any other legal system you can cite?
--MarkusQ
I'm not saying that anyone that disagrees with me is an astroturfer. I'm saying that that I do not understand why you persist in treating this as a free speech controversy when it clearly, demonstrably, was not and the point has been made to you, over and over, by several people, myself included.
The section in question had nothing to do with speech and everything to do with taking money. As I've explained several times, the provisions were completely independent of whether you even say or write anything (you would have been required to register for taking $30,000 to send a million e-mails, even if you never sent the e-mails). Conversely, you could say and write whatever you wished, and earn as much money as you cared to from your blog (or spam farm, or whatever) so long as you never took money from clients for specifically urging people to contact their congress critters.
You never seem to respond to this point, instead just ignoring it in your response or popping up elsewhere with essentially the same "it's all about free speech" claim.
Why is that?
OK, so disagree. I've shown that they are logically independent (with full links to the text of the bill in the earlier cases). Can you offer some logical, fact based argument to the contrary? Because I'm not claiming that you have disagreed with me; I'm claiming you have persisted in making factually incorrect statements long after it has been pointed out to you that they are factually incorrect. There's a difference.
--MarkusQ
Do you remember my response? Unless they are charging money specifically for pushing that particular agenda, it's a non-issue. But if they are, then yes, they are lobbying. To see the problem, let's look at the same structure in a slightly different context:
Having paid spokespeople pretend to be independent isn't free speech, it's fraud. And no one, in any of this is saying that they can't write whatever they want, or that they can't be paid, only that they can't be paid under the table. Free speech is about being able to say whatever you want, not about being able to say whatever you are paid to say without revealing that you're only saying it because you were paid. That's why ads that look too much like news articles have a little box printed around them saying "advertisement" and why Google ads are set off in a different color and why actors who endorse products have to say things like "I'm not a Doctor, even though I do play one on television" before they sell snake oil.
Again with the misrepresentation. This is just flat out illogical, unless you are claiming that 1) everything is on the up and up and 2) they won't get paid unless they keep it a secret.
You can't have it both ways; either everything is fine, in which case having public record of the transaction shouldn't be a problem, or the whole enterprise depends on it being done under the table, in which case I don't see how you can justify the position that everything is hunky-dory. And before you start off on any red herrings, remember that the law specifically excluded things like donations from members of an organization, ad revenue, pay received by employees writing on behalf of an organization, etc.
--MarkusQ
That is an interesting point. I assume you are talking about people like yourself, who persist in raising essentially the same objections even after it has been repeatedly pointed out (and, in some cases, conceded) that they are misrepresenting the issue at hand? I must admit that I am puzzled about this myself. From your posts on other topics you don't seem like an astroturfer, but yet you have persisted in posting the same misleading spin on this topic time and time again.
Why is that?
--MarkusQ
That's the whole point. If Alice in Acapulco asks Bob to drop a package off at Carol's house in Chicago, and unbeknownst to Bob the package is full of drugs, isn't Alice responsible even though she had no "direct contact" with the drugs? If Dave hires Eddie to kill Frank, is Dave in the clear because he has no "direct contact" with Frank? If a PR firm creates a blog or some other form of astroturfing operation full of (possibly inaccurate) information and urges people to contact their congress critters on the basis of it, aren't they lobbying just as surely as if they had hand delivered the stuff themselves?
--MarkusQ
*sigh*
But a bunch of writers putting words in the mouth of a fictional "scientist" is not science.
And a strawman is a strawman no matter how many times you raise it. There was nothing about free speech in the bill. No speech acts were restricted, in any way shape or form. The provision clearly and specifically required people / organizations to register if they went into the business of shilling, whether or not they ever wrote or said anything to the public (they could, for example, have defrauded their clients by never even setting up a blog or sending out the spam or whatever). Conversely, there was absolutely no requirement of any kind placed on people who were not hiring themselves out as paid shills.
--MarkusQ