Private school teachers, esp. parochial, often make less than unionized public school teachers. I don't know how much teachers *should* make, but there are professions in worse shape.
Actually, I'd say the NEA data is pretty much worthless because averages entire states and does not factor in some sort of COLA. The COLA between NYC and SD is *huge*. Also, states vary internally. I see that my state, VA, spends ~$6,000/pupil, pretty low on the list, while DC looks staggering at $13k. However, my county of Arlington, across the Potomac from DC, spends $12.5k. I again don't know the "right" number, but the averages are misleading. Medians would be slightly better.
Here is a more nuanced survey of VA salaries, which vary nearly 2:1 intrastate. When I lived in IL, spending varied nearly 6:1. (Here is NYC.) Our salaries are not proportionally as high as our spending per pupil (don't forget to factor in classs size BTW:), and the ironic thing is that many of the teachers can't afford to live in the county, which is not at all ritzy. Median home (note, not average!) value has reached $350k, double since I moved here 5 years ago(!). Anyway, one needs to look at context or the numbers mean nothing.
Versus sanitation workers it appears the teachers, education notwithstanding, make similar wages. Before someone chimes in to rag on the quality of teachers, at least some (or many) are good and deserve to be paid accordingly. And, before I get one of *those* people, no, "throwing money at something" does not guarantee fixing it. Choking off its air supply does guarantee results. (I hate that stupid argument.)
If NYC sanitation workers don't like their wages, they can convey they effectively by smell --- strike. Teachers have less colorful options, though I suppose closing the schools and sending kids home is pretty cruel.:)
As you can see, I'm starting off the new year cranky. Let's hope it lasts.;-)
Forget what I said about getting shot down and weather. This thing flies higher than both. My eyes apparently skipped over the subhead of the Apple article:
Powered by the sun and controlled by Power Macs, the ultralightweight Helios aircraft shattered the world altitude record in August 2001 when the remotely-piloted vehicle climbed to more than 96,500 feet (29,421 m.) -- three times higher than most commercial jets -- in a test flight over Hawaii.
I don't think the military will be *too* interested in Helios. A very easy target to shoot down! The Predator is a lot faster, and I'm pretty sure they lost at least one to hostile fire in Afghanistan. On the other hand... it would be useful for peacekeeping functions such as maintaining surveillance over [region] for long periods of time at low cost, such as to monitor (ahem) an arms control agreement. And I suppose it could drop bombs on things, though I'd rather it didn't.
Now with Helios, that unending 14-hour transoceanic flight you complained about really could be unending. You could just have the thing endlessly circling the globe, weather permitting.
Actually pretty easy -- the manhole. I was working on a sewer line recently where it enters the house and could hear each car driving over the manhole cover quite clearly, about 40' away. I very much doubt there was an intermediate pipe between the house's 3" and the main septic line.
Google does have a privacy policy. But it is not restricted by the Fourth Amendment, and even if they violated their policy or other laws by handing stuff over to law enforcement, I think all you'd have is a nominal civil claim against them. The gov't prosecuting you over this evidence would probably still be OK, unless they use the private party in a way that the latter is deemed their agent (more caselaw on that...). In other words, the gov't can't direct an investigation with Google as their puppet, w/o a warrant. Also, Google could be forced to caught up the info with a subpoena, easier to get than a warrant in most cases.
I don't know the legal details on privacy among private parties otherwise, what they can collect and what would break the law. I know there have been more and more noises about federal legislation to raise the bar for privacy in many areas, which I generally support. Don't even get me started on this national database idea....
On garbage, like I said, it would be easy enough to force you to waive your ownership interest. I wish they would, in fact, rather than beat up the 4th A. You could then dispose of your garbage privately, at a private dump, under the contractual conditions you desire.
Actually, having unfortunately read the article, I would *much rather* the police sift through my junk than reporters who then *publish* the information! Yech. I wonder if those reporters will be seeing a little less cooperation from the police, you know, background info and the like?;-)
Read the Greenwood dissent, Justices Marshall and Brennan agreed with you, and mention the mailbox analogy. Now, they're both dead, the decision was 6-2, and the Court is now more conservative. You can see the chances of the decision being reversed are zero.
The modern Court does not always rule against the 4th A. (as in the Kyllothermal imaging case -- see this proposal to use satellite surveillance!) but it has given it a pretty hard time.
Note even without Greenwood, a workaround would not be difficult. Most trash collection and landfills are handled by the gov't; they could require you to sign off any property rights as a condition of collection or disposal. You also need to draw a line somewhere that abandonment has occurred even without the consent of the owner -- for example, in most places that car of yours if left parked more than a certain amount of time (48 hours in Boston) could be ticketed, towed and impounded as abandoned (no, this doesn't mean you've lost ownership, but they can search it for inventory pursuant to impoundment to guard against claims of theft. They would then notify you, and if you don't claim it your ownership right would lapse.) Do you expect your ownership right in the garbage in the dump to persist forever? That could have some unexpected consequences, like if it becomes a Superfund site.
Oh yeah, they could always try to get a warrant, too... But showing probable cause is a drag.
Your disagreement is not with me but the SC! And perhaps with your state, for not imposing greater privacy standards which would at least restrict state actors.
Tsk-tsk, have you forgotton our administration's pledge to "Leave no redneck behind?" (kidding) (sort of)
From an economic standpoint, gov't intervention makes a lot of sense for market failure (private market fails to exploit opportunity), projects with high entry costs but long-term profits (airports, cell phone expansion?), and social projects that loses money but yield other benefits (universal mail delivery, public transit, gee-whiz pointless boodoogle manned space exploration:).
Equal protection? Clever! Wouldn't work, I'm sure. Besides, they can dispose of their waste in another way.
Do recall that men also leave DNA samples behind, often in as many places as possible. Think....
city sewer system
Yep, no problem, but I'm not collecting it. You didn't want that stuff back, did you?:)
The tricking stuff actually bothers me a little more than seizing stuff the owner never wanted to see again, depending how it is done. Did you see The Client? There, is was a juvenile, which adds extra problems of consent. 4th A. caselaw is generally a mess because the distinctions get so complex. The pendulum has swung strongly in the direction of the law enforcement; it's been many years since the Warren Court instituted most of the protections with which we are familiar (Miranda, court-appointed counsel, and so on).
No, it's not a blood sample, it's trash that has blood (menstrual fluid) on it. Discarded materials are unprotected by the 4th amendment, there's no violation of privacy in their seizure. Trash is trash.
That's the law anyway, not that it's right, and this tampon thing is kinda gross.:) YMMV.
You do need to draw a line, of claim that one's trash is one's property forever. If seizing it from the trash was improper, at what point would it no longer be her property and up for grabs, either from the trash company or municipality, or by digging at the dump?
This page about what not to do if accused of a crime is interesting (just found on Google, I can't vouch for it).
I could swear we did this a few weeks ago, but I can't get the slashdot search engine to perform.
The police or anyone can take trash at curbside, as it is considered abandoned. CA v. Greenwood
It gets stickier in the "curtilage" area of the property left open to trash collectors to come in for the garbage. See Greenwood. IIRC curb versus curtilage was the distinction in this Oregon case between the two trash takings?
Warrant is otherwise required unless a 4th A. exception applies such as exigency or evanescent evidence. (If these interest you, do a search or try nolo.com.:)
States or local authorities can set the 4th Amendment bar higher if they like, that is they can require greater restraint. I don't know of any that have done so offhand -- perhaps yours.
The analysis you describe is pretty much as I would expect. There will be no bright line, always discomfiting in free speech.
Funny you mention Singapore, you probably know of the numerous libel run-ins the Int'l Herald Tribune -- backed by NYT -- has had there. e.g., Safire column
One thing I can predict is that many law professors will use this problem to roast poor law students over the Socratic fire of hypotheticals.:-( If only someone would tell them going in that "There is no (perfect) answer!"
Here is a less petty and much more ideological ground for Schlafly opposing Sonny Bono. It discusses the ground that I very much hope the Court doesn't judge the Bono Act by -- that it has the power to decide how many years a "Limited Time" really is (I doubt it will). As the article discusses, to do so would possibly have implications for other issues the arch conservatives, and many libertarians, care very deeply about in other arenas in Congressional power from gun control to federal crime legislation and beyond.
It is odd to see two sides of the ideological divide come together. But that doesn't mean they see eye-to-eye. I've been wondering what agenda might be wrapped up in an otherwise worthy attack on corporate profiteering. I thought, what's most closely associated with the Sonny Bono Act? Disney. Hmm. Schlafly spoke her mind on the Bono Act in 1998 (here at the bottom):
The new book Disney: The Mouse Betrayed by Peter & Rochelle Schweizer proves conclusively that Eisner's Disney Company is the enemy of all the family values which Republicans cherish. So, why did Judiciary Committee Republicans quietly put through legislation that hurts the public interest but is so immensely profitable to Disney?
So there's one theory. This anti-Disney thing is very very big with many "pro-family" partisans. She spends most of her essay attacking the stench of money given both parties to pass the Act, which is true, but what did she choose to come out so strongly on *this* crooked law? I can suggest a few more.
Take help wherever it's offered, but check what's in their other hand, too.
There is an element weighing towards CA juris. beyong "mere posting," and that is the California location of the plaintiffs, which the CA SC dissent at least felt was known by the defendant and persuasive evidence of minimum contacts. So there are ways to find jurisdiction without going to the max.
If the California court was wrong and mere posting (publication) is enough, then the DVD case becomes essentially a speech case. A question: If "purposeful availment" or any standard more than "mere posting" carries the day, does that mean different rules for the electronic and print versions of the New York Times? (Or any other publisher.) Would editors say, "Well, that story's a little hot, put it in only the web edition"? Perversely the more international of the two versions would get the greater protection. What if they post on the web to avoid the law of a particular country where the print edition is not sold, while also providing translation into that hypothetical country's unique language?
I'm sure these and other Q's have already been played with, and perhaps soon will in the SC. Should be fun, from a distance.
The internet raises some tough jurisdictional challenges. With respect to libel, it was pretty easy to say where the lies were published, as in you could potentially restrict where books or newspapers were sold. Lots of doctrine up to now has been based on notions of locality and community. But now, as I type these words, I could be speaking to any corner of the planet. The amount of harm these words cause (none I hope) will be exactly the same, but possibly everywhere. Someone with bad intent has unlimited reach; someone who means well can get tagged from anywhere. Intimidating, and potentially subjecting everyone to the worst crooks, strictest laws, and craziest plaintiffs on the planet.
These "just location" questions will be a lot bigger in the long run than the DVD stuff, maybe that's why the US SC is taking a sniff early.
What is at stake here is not international jurisdiction as raised in the Australia libel case, but domestic personal jurisdiction over the defendant. They're going after an American BBS operator, not the Norwegien programmer. The California court did not believe the defendant met the "minimum contacts" test of Due Process to be sued in California.
The comment of Pavlovich's attorney is misleading (quoted who knows how far out of context): the question is not whether California might be an inconvenient forum, but whether the federal Constitution even allows it to be the forum, as Justice O'Connor perhaps suspects it might.
I'm surprised that this is being handled as an emergency stay instead of the ordinary certiorari route, which is slow but the routine. Usually this emergency one-Justice power only gets mentioned when executions are imminent.
The California Supreme Court ruled in November that the former webmaster, Matthew Pavlovich, cannot be sued for trade secret infringement in California. Justices said he could be sued in his home state of Texas, or in Indiana, where he was a college student when codes that allowed people to copy DVDs were posted on his Web site in 1999.
The program was written by a teenager in Norway and is just one of many easily available programs that can break DVD security codes.
The ruling by a divided California court makes it harder for the industry to pursue people who use the Internet to share copyrighted material.
Pavlovich's attorney, Allonn Levy, said Monday that a group should not be allowed to ``drag a student who's involved with a Web site into a forum that's halfway across the country." He said the case affects all people who use the Internet and businesses with sites on the Internet.
Actually Diana Ross is widely blamed for destroying the Supremes by going solo back in 1970. They had later personnel problems that may have been more lethal. I think these Supremes will survive the departure of Sandra "Swing" O'Connor, because their group is structured like a geriatric Menudo to survive departure of individual members.
Kudos to your current Moderation Totals: Offtopic=1, Troll=1, Funny=7, Overrated=2, Underrated=1, Total=12.
You need an Insightful, Informative, and Flamebait to collect all eight (are there more?). 8 points have been vaporized forever in this clash of titans. Not bad for your mere 20 words! What are the records here?
They're devestating weapons, to be sure, but they do not vaporize whole cities in a single blow.
Yep, although with MIRV's and ICBM's they do have pushbutton convenience and 30-minute delivery with no risk to anyone on the delivery end. At our peak in the 60's the U.S. owned 30,000+ warheads -- and never used even one after the first two. No one did. That's the really remarkable statistic to me. On the other hand, how much tonnage of boring bombs did the U.S. drop on Vietnam and surroundings? Several times all of WWII?
The Russians did test a 50-megaton device nicknamed "Tsar Bomba" that was prototyped to yield as much as 100+ megatons. That thing could be characterized as a city-killer. It looks like around 1960 both superpowers began to retire the big H-bombs in favor of smaller, lighter, more precise weapon in the 50-100 kiloton range. The Tsar Bomba weighed about 30 tons.
Re Japan, according to some reports what really demoralized the leaders was that the bomb would make unnecessary an Allied invasion of the island, which was hoped to produce a confrontation bloody enough to spur a negotiated peace with Japan retaining some of its conquests. The Allies did assume an invasion was necessary with conventional bombing, and apparantly were assumed it might be necessary even with nuclear bombing. Debate about all this will continue for years, but has recently become more interesting with the declassification of U.S. WWII intelligence documents, esp. decrypted MAGIC/ULTRA Japanese communications. Fascinating stuff.
The decline of the enclosed phone booth came about due to the high incidence of they being used as toilets
Why are we not willing to provide bathrooms for the indigent? They gotta go sometime. In some countries they have coin-op freestanding bathrooms, and provide the homeless with free tokens. There is a problem with prostitutes using the bathrooms for business transactions... on etrick is to have the doors open after a certain time interval. I'm sure lots of people here have more experience with these contraptions that I do, but the contribution to sanitation seems obvious.
In answer to your Q, pay phones were not particularly profitable -- maybe airports were exceptions -- and were maintained either because the property owners subsidized them (every restaurant and gas station is supposed to have a pay phone after all, though no longer) or regulatory pressure was applied to provide phones at reasonable rates for the poor. In Boston they retained a 10 basic rate until astonishingly recently.
I wonder what kind of environmental hazard is posed by junking thousands of pay phones?
How about junking hundreds of thousands or millions of cellphones. Plus the batteries each unit may go through in a lifetime. There's no way those things last as long as a nice clunky pay phone. I know we have a couple of dead ones around here somewhere, and a lot of people upgrade simply for fashion or features.
Yes, people are looking into recycling the phones. It's difficult because the materials are so heterogeneous, and though a few like tantalum are quite valuable, the labor to break up the phones can outweigh that. A nicer idea -- hand-me-downs to less wealthy developing countries, for sale or parts. Cellular phones have a disproportionate value in countries that never got the telephone line infrastructure in the first place.
The lightest portable identified in the Brookings survey and your link was the "Davy Crockett" (51 lbs.). It does seem they had a nuke for every occasion. Perhaps there is an undisclosed weapon even more portable.
I wanted to say that the idea of nuclear interceptors for ABM was long dead, but it's not at all true. In April 2002 the WP published this op-ed re the Pentagon's Defense Science Board studying the option. Congress overrode the Pentagon in October and forbade research into the topic. I read somewhere that the Board intends to complete its study nonetheless.
EMP and danger to U.S. satellites are mentioned as hazards, aside from political fallout. So I guess despite misgivings the nuclear interceptor concept is still live, at least in the minds of some planners.
Lindows IS getting a leg up because of MS "Windows"; they sought the association by choosing the name. Now, because Microsoft went with a term that is both generic and heavily promoted by them, Lindows gets a substantial and probably legal boost.
OK by me, but how tragic for Microsoft. If only they had called it Wacintosh in the first place.:)
BTW, one bright spot: McDonald's Restaurant didn't have a claim against a long-standing McDonald's eatery in an Illinois town, operated by a guy named McDonald. Big McDonald threatened and cajoled little McDonald, and lost. Eventually the McDonald's franchise in town closed, too. So there.
Slashdot Mirror
Not that anyone is still reading... :)
:), and the ironic thing is that many of the teachers can't afford to live in the county, which is not at all ritzy. Median home (note, not average!) value has reached $350k, double since I moved here 5 years ago(!). Anyway, one needs to look at context or the numbers mean nothing.
:)
;-)
I'm surprised people portray school teachers as borderline panhandlers. They vary WIDELY, as does per pupil school spending which varies by about 6:1.
NEA survey of salaries & spending
Private school teachers, esp. parochial, often make less than unionized public school teachers. I don't know how much teachers *should* make, but there are professions in worse shape.
Actually, I'd say the NEA data is pretty much worthless because averages entire states and does not factor in some sort of COLA. The COLA between NYC and SD is *huge*. Also, states vary internally. I see that my state, VA, spends ~$6,000/pupil, pretty low on the list, while DC looks staggering at $13k. However, my county of Arlington, across the Potomac from DC, spends $12.5k. I again don't know the "right" number, but the averages are misleading. Medians would be slightly better.
Here is a more nuanced survey of VA salaries, which vary nearly 2:1 intrastate. When I lived in IL, spending varied nearly 6:1. (Here is NYC.) Our salaries are not proportionally as high as our spending per pupil (don't forget to factor in classs size BTW
Versus sanitation workers it appears the teachers, education notwithstanding, make similar wages. Before someone chimes in to rag on the quality of teachers, at least some (or many) are good and deserve to be paid accordingly. And, before I get one of *those* people, no, "throwing money at something" does not guarantee fixing it. Choking off its air supply does guarantee results. (I hate that stupid argument.)
If NYC sanitation workers don't like their wages, they can convey they effectively by smell --- strike. Teachers have less colorful options, though I suppose closing the schools and sending kids home is pretty cruel.
As you can see, I'm starting off the new year cranky. Let's hope it lasts.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Apple Computer did a nice piece on Helios -- self-promotion, but it's still nice.
... it would be useful for peacekeeping functions such as maintaining surveillance over [region] for long periods of time at low cost, such as to monitor (ahem) an arms control agreement. And I suppose it could drop bombs on things, though I'd rather it didn't.
I don't think the military will be *too* interested in Helios. A very easy target to shoot down! The Predator is a lot faster, and I'm pretty sure they lost at least one to hostile fire in Afghanistan. On the other hand
Now with Helios, that unending 14-hour transoceanic flight you complained about really could be unending. You could just have the thing endlessly circling the globe, weather permitting.
Actually pretty easy -- the manhole. I was working on a sewer line recently where it enters the house and could hear each car driving over the manhole cover quite clearly, about 40' away. I very much doubt there was an intermediate pipe between the house's 3" and the main septic line.
:)
That's what you send the rookie to do.
Google does have a privacy policy. But it is not restricted by the Fourth Amendment, and even if they violated their policy or other laws by handing stuff over to law enforcement, I think all you'd have is a nominal civil claim against them. The gov't prosecuting you over this evidence would probably still be OK, unless they use the private party in a way that the latter is deemed their agent (more caselaw on that...). In other words, the gov't can't direct an investigation with Google as their puppet, w/o a warrant. Also, Google could be forced to caught up the info with a subpoena, easier to get than a warrant in most cases.
;-)
I don't know the legal details on privacy among private parties otherwise, what they can collect and what would break the law. I know there have been more and more noises about federal legislation to raise the bar for privacy in many areas, which I generally support. Don't even get me started on this national database idea....
On garbage, like I said, it would be easy enough to force you to waive your ownership interest. I wish they would, in fact, rather than beat up the 4th A. You could then dispose of your garbage privately, at a private dump, under the contractual conditions you desire.
Actually, having unfortunately read the article, I would *much rather* the police sift through my junk than reporters who then *publish* the information! Yech. I wonder if those reporters will be seeing a little less cooperation from the police, you know, background info and the like?
Read the Greenwood dissent, Justices Marshall and Brennan agreed with you, and mention the mailbox analogy. Now, they're both dead, the decision was 6-2, and the Court is now more conservative. You can see the chances of the decision being reversed are zero.
The modern Court does not always rule against the 4th A. (as in the Kyllo thermal imaging case -- see this proposal to use satellite surveillance!) but it has given it a pretty hard time.
Note even without Greenwood, a workaround would not be difficult. Most trash collection and landfills are handled by the gov't; they could require you to sign off any property rights as a condition of collection or disposal. You also need to draw a line somewhere that abandonment has occurred even without the consent of the owner -- for example, in most places that car of yours if left parked more than a certain amount of time (48 hours in Boston) could be ticketed, towed and impounded as abandoned (no, this doesn't mean you've lost ownership, but they can search it for inventory pursuant to impoundment to guard against claims of theft. They would then notify you, and if you don't claim it your ownership right would lapse.) Do you expect your ownership right in the garbage in the dump to persist forever? That could have some unexpected consequences, like if it becomes a Superfund site.
Oh yeah, they could always try to get a warrant, too... But showing probable cause is a drag.
Your disagreement is not with me but the SC! And perhaps with your state, for not imposing greater privacy standards which would at least restrict state actors.
Tsk-tsk, have you forgotton our administration's pledge to "Leave no redneck behind?" (kidding) (sort of)
:).
From an economic standpoint, gov't intervention makes a lot of sense for market failure (private market fails to exploit opportunity), projects with high entry costs but long-term profits (airports, cell phone expansion?), and social projects that loses money but yield other benefits (universal mail delivery, public transit, gee-whiz pointless boodoogle manned space exploration
Then there's Keynes to argue about...
I'm sure someone has stated it in a more poetic way. But I do think gov't has a role, and that it should step out at the earliest opportunity.
Yep, I tried it. No luck. Agree re Google, as do most (can't they just plug Google in here?).
:)
One problem is that any search with slashdot and "garbage" just brings up too many hits to read.
Here's a new angle...
:)
Equal protection? Clever! Wouldn't work, I'm sure. Besides, they can dispose of their waste in another way.
Do recall that men also leave DNA samples behind, often in as many places as possible. Think....
city sewer system
Yep, no problem, but I'm not collecting it. You didn't want that stuff back, did you?
The tricking stuff actually bothers me a little more than seizing stuff the owner never wanted to see again, depending how it is done. Did you see The Client? There, is was a juvenile, which adds extra problems of consent. 4th A. caselaw is generally a mess because the distinctions get so complex. The pendulum has swung strongly in the direction of the law enforcement; it's been many years since the Warren Court instituted most of the protections with which we are familiar (Miranda, court-appointed counsel, and so on).
No, it's not a blood sample, it's trash that has blood (menstrual fluid) on it. Discarded materials are unprotected by the 4th amendment, there's no violation of privacy in their seizure. Trash is trash.
:) YMMV.
That's the law anyway, not that it's right, and this tampon thing is kinda gross.
You do need to draw a line, of claim that one's trash is one's property forever. If seizing it from the trash was improper, at what point would it no longer be her property and up for grabs, either from the trash company or municipality, or by digging at the dump?
This page about what not to do if accused of a crime is interesting (just found on Google, I can't vouch for it).
Until a moment ago I *thought* NYC sanitation workers were well paid. It's a difficult job and a fairly expensive place to live. Not so -- $30-48k.
I could swear we did this a few weeks ago, but I can't get the slashdot search engine to perform.
:)
The police or anyone can take trash at curbside, as it is considered abandoned. CA v. Greenwood
It gets stickier in the "curtilage" area of the property left open to trash collectors to come in for the garbage. See Greenwood. IIRC curb versus curtilage was the distinction in this Oregon case between the two trash takings?
Warrant is otherwise required unless a 4th A. exception applies such as exigency or evanescent evidence. (If these interest you, do a search or try nolo.com.
States or local authorities can set the 4th Amendment bar higher if they like, that is they can require greater restraint. I don't know of any that have done so offhand -- perhaps yours.
Thx. I'll look at the case.
:-( If only someone would tell them going in that "There is no (perfect) answer!"
The analysis you describe is pretty much as I would expect. There will be no bright line, always discomfiting in free speech.
Funny you mention Singapore, you probably know of the numerous libel run-ins the Int'l Herald Tribune -- backed by NYT -- has had there. e.g., Safire column
One thing I can predict is that many law professors will use this problem to roast poor law students over the Socratic fire of hypotheticals.
Here is a less petty and much more ideological ground for Schlafly opposing Sonny Bono. It discusses the ground that I very much hope the Court doesn't judge the Bono Act by -- that it has the power to decide how many years a "Limited Time" really is (I doubt it will). As the article discusses, to do so would possibly have implications for other issues the arch conservatives, and many libertarians, care very deeply about in other arenas in Congressional power from gun control to federal crime legislation and beyond.
It's a long shot, but it's there.
It is odd to see two sides of the ideological divide come together. But that doesn't mean they see eye-to-eye. I've been wondering what agenda might be wrapped up in an otherwise worthy attack on corporate profiteering. I thought, what's most closely associated with the Sonny Bono Act? Disney. Hmm. Schlafly spoke her mind on the Bono Act in 1998 (here at the bottom):
So there's one theory. This anti-Disney thing is very very big with many "pro-family" partisans. She spends most of her essay attacking the stench of money given both parties to pass the Act, which is true, but what did she choose to come out so strongly on *this* crooked law? I can suggest a few more.
Take help wherever it's offered, but check what's in their other hand, too.
There is an element weighing towards CA juris. beyong "mere posting," and that is the California location of the plaintiffs, which the CA SC dissent at least felt was known by the defendant and persuasive evidence of minimum contacts. So there are ways to find jurisdiction without going to the max.
If the California court was wrong and mere posting (publication) is enough, then the DVD case becomes essentially a speech case. A question: If "purposeful availment" or any standard more than "mere posting" carries the day, does that mean different rules for the electronic and print versions of the New York Times? (Or any other publisher.) Would editors say, "Well, that story's a little hot, put it in only the web edition"? Perversely the more international of the two versions would get the greater protection. What if they post on the web to avoid the law of a particular country where the print edition is not sold, while also providing translation into that hypothetical country's unique language?
I'm sure these and other Q's have already been played with, and perhaps soon will in the SC. Should be fun, from a distance.
You're basically right.
The internet raises some tough jurisdictional challenges. With respect to libel, it was pretty easy to say where the lies were published, as in you could potentially restrict where books or newspapers were sold. Lots of doctrine up to now has been based on notions of locality and community. But now, as I type these words, I could be speaking to any corner of the planet. The amount of harm these words cause (none I hope) will be exactly the same, but possibly everywhere. Someone with bad intent has unlimited reach; someone who means well can get tagged from anywhere. Intimidating, and potentially subjecting everyone to the worst crooks, strictest laws, and craziest plaintiffs on the planet.
These "just location" questions will be a lot bigger in the long run than the DVD stuff, maybe that's why the US SC is taking a sniff early.
The comment of Pavlovich's attorney is misleading (quoted who knows how far out of context): the question is not whether California might be an inconvenient forum, but whether the federal Constitution even allows it to be the forum, as Justice O'Connor perhaps suspects it might.
I'm surprised that this is being handled as an emergency stay instead of the ordinary certiorari route, which is slow but the routine. Usually this emergency one-Justice power only gets mentioned when executions are imminent.
Actually Diana Ross is widely blamed for destroying the Supremes by going solo back in 1970. They had later personnel problems that may have been more lethal. I think these Supremes will survive the departure of Sandra "Swing" O'Connor, because their group is structured like a geriatric Menudo to survive departure of individual members.
Kudos to your current Moderation Totals: Offtopic=1, Troll=1, Funny=7, Overrated=2, Underrated=1, Total=12.
You need an Insightful, Informative, and Flamebait to collect all eight (are there more?). 8 points have been vaporized forever in this clash of titans. Not bad for your mere 20 words! What are the records here?
They're devestating weapons, to be sure, but they do not vaporize whole cities in a single blow.
Yep, although with MIRV's and ICBM's they do have pushbutton convenience and 30-minute delivery with no risk to anyone on the delivery end. At our peak in the 60's the U.S. owned 30,000+ warheads -- and never used even one after the first two. No one did. That's the really remarkable statistic to me. On the other hand, how much tonnage of boring bombs did the U.S. drop on Vietnam and surroundings? Several times all of WWII?
The Russians did test a 50-megaton device nicknamed "Tsar Bomba" that was prototyped to yield as much as 100+ megatons. That thing could be characterized as a city-killer. It looks like around 1960 both superpowers began to retire the big H-bombs in favor of smaller, lighter, more precise weapon in the 50-100 kiloton range. The Tsar Bomba weighed about 30 tons.
Re Japan, according to some reports what really demoralized the leaders was that the bomb would make unnecessary an Allied invasion of the island, which was hoped to produce a confrontation bloody enough to spur a negotiated peace with Japan retaining some of its conquests. The Allies did assume an invasion was necessary with conventional bombing, and apparantly were assumed it might be necessary even with nuclear bombing. Debate about all this will continue for years, but has recently become more interesting with the declassification of U.S. WWII intelligence documents, esp. decrypted MAGIC/ULTRA Japanese communications. Fascinating stuff.
The decline of the enclosed phone booth came about due to the high incidence of they being used as toilets
... on etrick is to have the doors open after a certain time interval. I'm sure lots of people here have more experience with these contraptions that I do, but the contribution to sanitation seems obvious.
Why are we not willing to provide bathrooms for the indigent? They gotta go sometime. In some countries they have coin-op freestanding bathrooms, and provide the homeless with free tokens. There is a problem with prostitutes using the bathrooms for business transactions
In answer to your Q, pay phones were not particularly profitable -- maybe airports were exceptions -- and were maintained either because the property owners subsidized them (every restaurant and gas station is supposed to have a pay phone after all, though no longer) or regulatory pressure was applied to provide phones at reasonable rates for the poor. In Boston they retained a 10 basic rate until astonishingly recently.
I wonder what kind of environmental hazard is posed by junking thousands of pay phones?
How about junking hundreds of thousands or millions of cellphones. Plus the batteries each unit may go through in a lifetime. There's no way those things last as long as a nice clunky pay phone. I know we have a couple of dead ones around here somewhere, and a lot of people upgrade simply for fashion or features.
Yes, people are looking into recycling the phones. It's difficult because the materials are so heterogeneous, and though a few like tantalum are quite valuable, the labor to break up the phones can outweigh that. A nicer idea -- hand-me-downs to less wealthy developing countries, for sale or parts. Cellular phones have a disproportionate value in countries that never got the telephone line infrastructure in the first place.
The lightest portable identified in the Brookings survey and your link was the "Davy Crockett" (51 lbs.). It does seem they had a nuke for every occasion. Perhaps there is an undisclosed weapon even more portable.
I wanted to say that the idea of nuclear interceptors for ABM was long dead, but it's not at all true. In April 2002 the WP published this op-ed re the Pentagon's Defense Science Board studying the option. Congress overrode the Pentagon in October and forbade research into the topic. I read somewhere that the Board intends to complete its study nonetheless.
EMP and danger to U.S. satellites are mentioned as hazards, aside from political fallout. So I guess despite misgivings the nuclear interceptor concept is still live, at least in the minds of some planners.
Apple might crib some of your ideas!
Lindows IS getting a leg up because of MS "Windows"; they sought the association by choosing the name. Now, because Microsoft went with a term that is both generic and heavily promoted by them, Lindows gets a substantial and probably legal boost.
:)
OK by me, but how tragic for Microsoft. If only they had called it Wacintosh in the first place.
BTW, one bright spot: McDonald's Restaurant didn't have a claim against a long-standing McDonald's eatery in an Illinois town, operated by a guy named McDonald. Big McDonald threatened and cajoled little McDonald, and lost. Eventually the McDonald's franchise in town closed, too. So there.