Prior restraints are OK, even content-based ones, under narrow circumstances. The rules are strict and IIRC violence pretty much has to be imminent. I babble on about this in another fork of this thread.
I do think it's best to err on the side of free speech, partly because it lets the extremists demonstrate what asses they are, because the gov't tends to make an ass of its administering a censorship regime, because it allows the forces of light and goodness to respond to them coherently, and because the alternative is to drive these things underground.
Etc., etc. So if we were to apply the American idea of free speech (the holy law) to Australia, their law -might- be OK, though I doubt it. Either way, the law would be asinine.
Interesting -- i lived in Chicago for a couple of years, including the 1996 Democratic Convention. The dems had not come to Chgo since the disaster of 1968, and there was a lot of apprehension about it. Of course the police followed the modern doctrine of overwhelming force, and anyway the protests were nothing. A week later the National Hardware Convention arrived with about 5 times the number of people, and you can imagine what a rowdy crowd they are.
1968 was a different time, and free speech has not been tested as much since.
Sometimes speech is criminal, e.g., you can't shout "Fire!" ina crowded theater; and web sites are a form of speech.
The "Nuremberg Files" anti-abortion site case in the example I think of. This is not to say legal action was successful -- here's the latest version of the site -- but note they are heeded the 9th Circuit's "hysterical" decision.
Even if this case was wrongly decided, it's not hard to imagine more dire circumstances such as someone publishing American troop movements during wartime. If, for example, Al Queda were posting its marching orders on a web site, that act would be a crime and the web site could be suppressed. There's plenty of case law on this at the Supreme Court level, and note these are examples of applying the 1st. A. rather than ignoring it.
Much more intelligent discussions of this can be found from sources such as EFF and of course the ACLU. These organizations argue for the more expansive interpretations of the 1st A. and their views do not necessarily represent the current state of the law.
Can you imagine sitting in that thing as it tracked a frisky storm with shifting winds? In the right conditions you'd be doing 360's, perhaps with significant centrifugal accelerations at the ends. OK, maybe you'd turn off "free swivel" mode at this point (stripping the gears) as you woke up, screaming, but what if you weren't home to do it?
BTW, a typical jet is not intended to be operated in a hurricane. The folks who study hurricanes use Orions, I think, and are very respectful. Of course, glued to the ground structural failure is not your main concern -- a wing can fall off for all you care -- but that gimbal, well...
Your front door would always be in a different place? A 727 is pretty long (~150') and that could mean long walks with the groceries (the 727 does have that unique "air stair" in the tail, a la D.B Cooper). Maybe you can rotate it on demand.
Yes, safeties could be designed for most of these things, but no safety is a match for human error or bad luck.
OK, I've heard of dumber ideas, but this one is a contender. They auctioned off a small square piece of cardboard recently, and it did quite well.
Good question. Airplanes on the ground don't lift off both because the angle of attack is wrong and that they can't even fly with less than nearly a hundred MPH headwind (the stall speed). (Little prop planes like I used to fly can lift off with much less.)
However, in high crosswinds or hurricane-force storms I would be very nervous the thing might flip over. I also wonder about the risk of lightning strikes? Presumably a house(-plane) is better grounded than one sitting in the middle of the tarmac. yeah, maybe the strike would just run through the skin, but it's not a feature I would look for in a house.
I bet a plane-house would be $$$ to heat & AC, too -- they're not all that well insulated. You'd also need forced air to ventilate the thing or it would start to get just a little stuffy.
...if the US wants to embargo or edit the videos for specific security reasons, that's OK (I hadn't heard the sheet thing! was the analyst smarter than our intelligence?). They could have broadcast the audio with a still, or whatever. It makes me nervous to suggest we need to censor the bad guys, and I don't like that the networks did it voluntarily on vague reasons from the feds. I still believe that the administration's reasons were primarily poitics (no!), and if I'm wrong there goes my argument.:)
With the snipers, it's not widely known that the final descriptions of them and their car, including license plate, that were broadcast and which led to their identification by a trucker, we "leaked" to the media. Some of the press noticed, however, that the leaks were coming from a lot of different directions, suggesting that's what law enforcement wanted. Publicity was generally managed carefully but erred on the side of openness because with the snipers the gov't really needed citizen help (I live in Arlington, VA).
...the gov't is empowered to block communications aimed at organizing violent or illegal acts, such as a riot. Now, the rule is a strict rule, and so the threat of violence must be specific and imminent (the classic Supreme Court case held that a Klansmans calling for generic "revengement" at a rally was not censorable, despite his poor grammar). And criminal speech is not protected ("Let's rob that bank.").
The problem with the Australian move is not so much that it's anathema to free speech as it is stupid, much like the White House "encouraging" the craven networks not to broadcast Osama bin Laden's tape because it might have secret signals in it (more likely that was a cover story for plain old political reasons). There are far too many routes of alternative communication to make such measures any more than symbolic.
As the great Justive Homer would have said, "D'oh."
Regardless of whether what the NYT requests is "necessary" it seems plain old politeness to provide it. They have bills to pay, and no one has to read their content. They ask for info, they offer something great in return, I say OK.
As for other newspapers being free, it's not really true if you confine yourself to the papers most worth reading -- papers which not coincidentally have the highest production costs, and which are most often cited. In the states, WSJ is paid-only (with some exceptions), NYT and LAT require reg., and WP for now is free. I'm pretty sure the Times in London requires subscription. All charge for content older than a week, but their bread-and-butter I'm pretty sure is the day-to-day paper, the rest is "yesterday's news," so as of now their online ops are experiments running at a loss. I'd like to see that experiment run as long as possible.
No, it's not pirating to use the referrer links -- which I bet won't be around much longer -- it's just a matter of politeness, an honor code. Taking the roundabout way for the sole purpose of avoiding reg is not in the spirit of things, even if you can do it. If anyone doesn't like the terms, I can sympathize, but also encourage them to read other papers.
I'm a longtime NYT fan and make these points not to browbeat anyone, but to raise the paper's point of view. NYT is an odd bird for having a fairly modest circulation but the most prominent national position. I think gov't-underwritten news such as the BBC are a good thing (they also do great work) but aside from NPR we don't really have that here, and what gov't funding NPR has is annually under attack anyway.
Of course no one is even reading this thread any more, given the/. 30-second attention span.:-) To the empty room -- any questions?
What the NYT article did not discuss, and I wish it had, was what % of Poe's predictions/discoveries proved correct (so far?). Maybe he threa a lot of spaghetti at the wall and some stuck; or perhaps he was quite prescient overall.
It's interesting to look at the authors whose ideas turned out to be valid. Some might still turn out true (H.G. Wells?). Of course in retrospect, we tend to forget the 100's of authors who were merely nuts.
Inasmuch -- actually, I'm a lawyer, so I'm quite familiar with the word.:)
It's hard to see the Supreme Court decision as a "moot point" because Bush would have won anyway. If the National Guard had taken over Florida and declared Bush the winner, that wouldn't be irrelevant even though the outcome was the same. The process counts as much as the result, and the Supreme Court made a terrible mistake by forcing Florida to stop the recounts on the theory that although Gore was right in principle there was not enough time left, neglecting that its own stay and candidate Bush's ruthless strategy had run out the clock. Perhaps he "stole" (I use the term with tongue in cheek) an election that was already his, but it was still improper.
Oddly I don't care who got the brass ring because it was so close. I do care how President Bush won, and by any reckoning the election and legal squabbling were a horrible mess that we should not put behind us. We can't stop "moaning" about the election because what happened procedurally was a travesty and can not recur. I'm critical of anyone happy or unhappy with the outcome who does not agree. Ironically, President Bush just quietly signed off on a federal bill to fund updating the election procedure.
As for who would have won (or did win), the hypothetical outcomes I cited were from the same NYT/WP/CNN etc. study. Again the method chosen is critical, and I reject any method that not place the intent of the voter as paramount. Intent-of-the-voter standards tended to favor Gore. Whatever the standard, I'm surprised you would imply a "tiny, tiny" victory is somehow not a victory.
The irregularities in the Florida election were objectively concrete, not speculative, and thus are not a conspiracy theory. As it happens, this year Florida lost (and later found) 100,000 votes in one region, though (whew) it could not have affected the outcome. As we know, it some elections it would. This issue is not going away.
I should explain that I focused on voting rights in school and am more interested in fair elections than horse-race politics. The mechanics of electoral theory and its underlying irrationality are fascinating, for the right person.;-) I'm still curious whether Kennedy legitimately defeated Nixon, and that's not political sour grapes. Anyway, I explain this at length in the hope you and others take another look at the election, not President Bush, and see what is there that's not right. After all, you wouldn't accept a computer that couldn't count right, would you?
Yeah, the INS has fairly substantial powers, and the rights of the constitution apply in a more limited way. Nothing in the Constitution says this directly, however; it's implied from the President's powers to protect the borders. The immigration folks have been granted tremendous discretion with non-Americans, and many Americans are not thrilled with that. In the wake of 9/11 that power has grown, and once the stories filter out even the "it doesn't hurt to be cautious" folks will start to question the path we've gone down.
But even illegal immigrants have certain rights to due process and such. (If you're an "illegal enemy combatant" you're SOL.) The ACLU site (down at the moment?) might be worth your perusal. Sorry if you were mistreated, please visit again.:)
Note that law enforcement may misrepresent legal rights to even Americans. There's a always a temptation to be overzealous, and the agent may not fully understand the law (and sometimes they're jerks, but I understand that happens even in other countries!). I was searched, for drugs presumably, in a Paris metro once, and I hadn't the slightest idea what my rights were.
It's just a quid pro quo thing. I don't think THEY care that much, but do believe it's fair they be able to judge how many distinct individuals visit the site, and how often, and perhaps from where, data that doubtlessly is shown to advertisers who want to know whether their ads are being seen. I figure this is the same kind of anonymous data they get when they sell newspapers.
But actually your ideas don't even have to be interesting to be protected under the 1st amendment. I agree with you that censoring these clowns would be a bad idea, for ideological as welll as practical reasons.
But the history of Europe has been different from ours, and I appreciate that they may need different rules. We've never had anything quite like the Holocaust on American soil, thank god. (Yes, I haven't forgotten the American Indian.)
The 9th A. doesn't really do anything. at least as it's been construed for over 200 years. It is more a rule of construction for federal-state relations, a reminder that by default the powers not vested in the federal gov't lie with the states -- which states (even if you were correct) would be able to enumerate rights as you fear. Besides, most hate crime laws are state laws, and thoroughly constitutional.
If you don't believe me, try to find a law held unconstitutional under the 9th A. by the Supreme Court. There are plenty of federal laws enumerating certain acts, enacted under federal powers such as the 14th A.
A hate crime law merely singles out crimes committed with certain prohibited intents for greater punishment. This is consistent with the
The NYT has the fairest registration deal I've ever seen, less intrusive than even Slashdot that nearly everyone here finds acceptable. I've never seen a spam from them, and I do subscribe to a daily news bulletin they provide. For a free service, I think it's fair to provide them the minimal amount of information reg. provides, information they need to justify the service internally and to advertisers -- and it's less trouble than bending over backwards to tunnel around it.
NYT has arguably the best free (for how much longer?) general news source online -- very frequent cited on/. -- and a show of support is something I'd encourage. We subscribe to the weekend editions despite online access; there's still something to be said for newsprint.
BTW, they do not track what you read; I looked into this, and was paranoid enough to send a specific inquiry. Besides, they don't really know who "you" are.
Well, the merry file sharers are sharing, in a voluntary association amongst themselves -- I'll show you mine if you show me yours, or even if you don't -- as opposed to the victimized copyright holders. So maybe you want the term "cooperative leeches" or "distributed leeches"? Or, the proven old term "pirates."
Point well taken. Thievery by any other name would smell the same. But no one wants to be called a hypocrite, least of all by themselves.
I realize this may provide an unintentional springboard for speeches by the piracy rationalizers. To being it back sharply on-topic, if the broadband providers do need to contain costs I'd rather they try to single old the illegal uses first. (If they're doing this just to maximize profit, then we have a market failure.)
Back when VCR's were introduced to the public it was argued they would be used to violate copyright, but because the courts found VCR's had legitimate uses as well (your nephew bar mitzvah, etc.) they were not per se illegitimate.
I assume this is Morton Thiokol doing the testing? I'd sort of forgotten they still built the things after the Challenger disaster (not that it was their fault, I know NASA waived its own temperature regs), this article indicates they have a $2.4 billion contract through 2004.
Geez, 1+ million lbs. propellant per booster! Interesting, isn't it that Goddard developed liquid-fueled rockets as a modernization of solid-fueled rockets, then we later went back to solid fuel for so many applications. I guess solid fuel's biggest disadvantage is that you can't turn it off...
IIRC there were, at the outset of the shuttle program, proposals for a one-piece SRB casing. The only reason for a segmented booster was to facilitate shipping; a 1-piece could only have been delivered by barge. I think some politician or other was from UT, and well you get the picture.
1988 was 14 years ago! I don't know how rarely something has to occur to be rare, but this seems pretty rare to me. Not Halley's Comet rare, but rare enough to be a rare opportunity.
Celestial lottery -- well, when is the next syzygy? Rare enough for ya?:) (Not terribly useful but interesting.)
Speaking of timing, the Voyager probes were launched as a time particularly suitable for a "Grand Tour" of the solar system. Really remarkable, the way they used gravitational slingshots and careful alignment to visit all the gas giants with a small amount of fuel. I can imagine the calculations for getting to the Moon and back, but interplanetary probes -- wow.
Cassini -- not to mention the Titan probe it will be dropping off. I hadn't even heard of that until the first Saturn pictures were sent back. I have trouble keeping track of the alphabet-soup of probes, but when they start sending back data, wow. One of the single strongest images I have from being a kid was the Viking shot of the Martian surface on the cover of National Geographic.
The NASA site has some excellent images, and individual project pages for people like me who need brushing up.
We can kind of imagine ourselves living on Mars -- not that it will happen anytime soon -- while Venus really is a hellhole. They've had trouble getting spaceships to withstand the pressure, never mind the temperature, and the atmosphere has lots of nasty stuff in it.
But Mars -- we can send cute little rovers to Mars, and it's that cool color.
Yes, I've seen both and agree. I was thinking, though, of a book with NASA's official imprimatur, assuming they know space better than anyone. As another poster indicated, NASA intended not a rebuke to conspiracy theorists but an educational volume for teachers etc., since the misconceptions and weird theories keep popping up.
Besdies, if Plait takes on astrology, well that's just going to make a lot of people mad. Astrology's real, or they wouldn't put it in the paper.
I'd love to see a survey of the general public's knowledge of space. Ever since that kid got a majority of people to agree dihydrogen monoxide should be banned, I've been worried.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey -- IAAL!
Prior restraints are OK, even content-based ones, under narrow circumstances. The rules are strict and IIRC violence pretty much has to be imminent. I babble on about this in another fork of this thread.
I do think it's best to err on the side of free speech, partly because it lets the extremists demonstrate what asses they are, because the gov't tends to make an ass of its administering a censorship regime, because it allows the forces of light and goodness to respond to them coherently, and because the alternative is to drive these things underground.
Etc., etc. So if we were to apply the American idea of free speech (the holy law) to Australia, their law -might- be OK, though I doubt it. Either way, the law would be asinine.
Interesting -- i lived in Chicago for a couple of years, including the 1996 Democratic Convention. The dems had not come to Chgo since the disaster of 1968, and there was a lot of apprehension about it. Of course the police followed the modern doctrine of overwhelming force, and anyway the protests were nothing. A week later the National Hardware Convention arrived with about 5 times the number of people, and you can imagine what a rowdy crowd they are.
1968 was a different time, and free speech has not been tested as much since.
Sometimes speech is criminal, e.g., you can't shout "Fire!" ina crowded theater; and web sites are a form of speech.
The "Nuremberg Files" anti-abortion site case in the example I think of. This is not to say legal action was successful -- here's the latest version of the site -- but note they are heeded the 9th Circuit's "hysterical" decision.
Even if this case was wrongly decided, it's not hard to imagine more dire circumstances such as someone publishing American troop movements during wartime. If, for example, Al Queda were posting its marching orders on a web site, that act would be a crime and the web site could be suppressed. There's plenty of case law on this at the Supreme Court level, and note these are examples of applying the 1st. A. rather than ignoring it.
Much more intelligent discussions of this can be found from sources such as EFF and of course the ACLU. These organizations argue for the more expansive interpretations of the 1st A. and their views do not necessarily represent the current state of the law.
Can you imagine sitting in that thing as it tracked a frisky storm with shifting winds? In the right conditions you'd be doing 360's, perhaps with significant centrifugal accelerations at the ends. OK, maybe you'd turn off "free swivel" mode at this point (stripping the gears) as you woke up, screaming, but what if you weren't home to do it?
BTW, a typical jet is not intended to be operated in a hurricane. The folks who study hurricanes use Orions, I think, and are very respectful. Of course, glued to the ground structural failure is not your main concern -- a wing can fall off for all you care -- but that gimbal, well...
Your front door would always be in a different place? A 727 is pretty long (~150') and that could mean long walks with the groceries (the 727 does have that unique "air stair" in the tail, a la D.B Cooper). Maybe you can rotate it on demand.
Yes, safeties could be designed for most of these things, but no safety is a match for human error or bad luck.
OK, I've heard of dumber ideas, but this one is a contender. They auctioned off a small square piece of cardboard recently, and it did quite well.
Good question. Airplanes on the ground don't lift off both because the angle of attack is wrong and that they can't even fly with less than nearly a hundred MPH headwind (the stall speed). (Little prop planes like I used to fly can lift off with much less.)
However, in high crosswinds or hurricane-force storms I would be very nervous the thing might flip over. I also wonder about the risk of lightning strikes? Presumably a house(-plane) is better grounded than one sitting in the middle of the tarmac. yeah, maybe the strike would just run through the skin, but it's not a feature I would look for in a house.
I bet a plane-house would be $$$ to heat & AC, too -- they're not all that well insulated. You'd also need forced air to ventilate the thing or it would start to get just a little stuffy.
...if the US wants to embargo or edit the videos for specific security reasons, that's OK (I hadn't heard the sheet thing! was the analyst smarter than our intelligence?). They could have broadcast the audio with a still, or whatever. It makes me nervous to suggest we need to censor the bad guys, and I don't like that the networks did it voluntarily on vague reasons from the feds. I still believe that the administration's reasons were primarily poitics (no!), and if I'm wrong there goes my argument. :)
With the snipers, it's not widely known that the final descriptions of them and their car, including license plate, that were broadcast and which led to their identification by a trucker, we "leaked" to the media. Some of the press noticed, however, that the leaks were coming from a lot of different directions, suggesting that's what law enforcement wanted. Publicity was generally managed carefully but erred on the side of openness because with the snipers the gov't really needed citizen help (I live in Arlington, VA).
So both sides use each other -- symbiosis.
Check out Harvard project for the latest on the battle. Looks like the Chinese are pulling ahead.
Lonely. :)
Although you needn't throw insults. "Hono(u)rable"?!? You could ruin me around here.
...the gov't is empowered to block communications aimed at organizing violent or illegal acts, such as a riot. Now, the rule is a strict rule, and so the threat of violence must be specific and imminent (the classic Supreme Court case held that a Klansmans calling for generic "revengement" at a rally was not censorable, despite his poor grammar). And criminal speech is not protected ("Let's rob that bank.").
The problem with the Australian move is not so much that it's anathema to free speech as it is stupid, much like the White House "encouraging" the craven networks not to broadcast Osama bin Laden's tape because it might have secret signals in it (more likely that was a cover story for plain old political reasons). There are far too many routes of alternative communication to make such measures any more than symbolic.
As the great Justive Homer would have said, "D'oh."
More nitpicking:
/. 30-second attention span. :-) To the empty room -- any questions?
Regardless of whether what the NYT requests is "necessary" it seems plain old politeness to provide it. They have bills to pay, and no one has to read their content. They ask for info, they offer something great in return, I say OK.
As for other newspapers being free, it's not really true if you confine yourself to the papers most worth reading -- papers which not coincidentally have the highest production costs, and which are most often cited. In the states, WSJ is paid-only (with some exceptions), NYT and LAT require reg., and WP for now is free. I'm pretty sure the Times in London requires subscription. All charge for content older than a week, but their bread-and-butter I'm pretty sure is the day-to-day paper, the rest is "yesterday's news," so as of now their online ops are experiments running at a loss. I'd like to see that experiment run as long as possible.
No, it's not pirating to use the referrer links -- which I bet won't be around much longer -- it's just a matter of politeness, an honor code. Taking the roundabout way for the sole purpose of avoiding reg is not in the spirit of things, even if you can do it. If anyone doesn't like the terms, I can sympathize, but also encourage them to read other papers.
I'm a longtime NYT fan and make these points not to browbeat anyone, but to raise the paper's point of view. NYT is an odd bird for having a fairly modest circulation but the most prominent national position. I think gov't-underwritten news such as the BBC are a good thing (they also do great work) but aside from NPR we don't really have that here, and what gov't funding NPR has is annually under attack anyway.
Of course no one is even reading this thread any more, given the
What the NYT article did not discuss, and I wish it had, was what % of Poe's predictions/discoveries proved correct (so far?). Maybe he threa a lot of spaghetti at the wall and some stuck; or perhaps he was quite prescient overall.
It's interesting to look at the authors whose ideas turned out to be valid. Some might still turn out true (H.G. Wells?). Of course in retrospect, we tend to forget the 100's of authors who were merely nuts.
Inasmuch -- actually, I'm a lawyer, so I'm quite familiar with the word. :)
;-) I'm still curious whether Kennedy legitimately defeated Nixon, and that's not political sour grapes. Anyway, I explain this at length in the hope you and others take another look at the election, not President Bush, and see what is there that's not right. After all, you wouldn't accept a computer that couldn't count right, would you?
It's hard to see the Supreme Court decision as a "moot point" because Bush would have won anyway. If the National Guard had taken over Florida and declared Bush the winner, that wouldn't be irrelevant even though the outcome was the same. The process counts as much as the result, and the Supreme Court made a terrible mistake by forcing Florida to stop the recounts on the theory that although Gore was right in principle there was not enough time left, neglecting that its own stay and candidate Bush's ruthless strategy had run out the clock. Perhaps he "stole" (I use the term with tongue in cheek) an election that was already his, but it was still improper.
Oddly I don't care who got the brass ring because it was so close. I do care how President Bush won, and by any reckoning the election and legal squabbling were a horrible mess that we should not put behind us. We can't stop "moaning" about the election because what happened procedurally was a travesty and can not recur. I'm critical of anyone happy or unhappy with the outcome who does not agree. Ironically, President Bush just quietly signed off on a federal bill to fund updating the election procedure.
As for who would have won (or did win), the hypothetical outcomes I cited were from the same NYT/WP/CNN etc. study. Again the method chosen is critical, and I reject any method that not place the intent of the voter as paramount. Intent-of-the-voter standards tended to favor Gore. Whatever the standard, I'm surprised you would imply a "tiny, tiny" victory is somehow not a victory.
The irregularities in the Florida election were objectively concrete, not speculative, and thus are not a conspiracy theory. As it happens, this year Florida lost (and later found) 100,000 votes in one region, though (whew) it could not have affected the outcome. As we know, it some elections it would. This issue is not going away.
I should explain that I focused on voting rights in school and am more interested in fair elections than horse-race politics. The mechanics of electoral theory and its underlying irrationality are fascinating, for the right person.
Well, rating are why they had Apollo 13. ;-)
Yeah, the INS has fairly substantial powers, and the rights of the constitution apply in a more limited way. Nothing in the Constitution says this directly, however; it's implied from the President's powers to protect the borders. The immigration folks have been granted tremendous discretion with non-Americans, and many Americans are not thrilled with that. In the wake of 9/11 that power has grown, and once the stories filter out even the "it doesn't hurt to be cautious" folks will start to question the path we've gone down.
:)
But even illegal immigrants have certain rights to due process and such. (If you're an "illegal enemy combatant" you're SOL.) The ACLU site (down at the moment?) might be worth your perusal. Sorry if you were mistreated, please visit again.
Note that law enforcement may misrepresent legal rights to even Americans. There's a always a temptation to be overzealous, and the agent may not fully understand the law (and sometimes they're jerks, but I understand that happens even in other countries!). I was searched, for drugs presumably, in a Paris metro once, and I hadn't the slightest idea what my rights were.
:-) Been there...
It's just a quid pro quo thing. I don't think THEY care that much, but do believe it's fair they be able to judge how many distinct individuals visit the site, and how often, and perhaps from where, data that doubtlessly is shown to advertisers who want to know whether their ads are being seen. I figure this is the same kind of anonymous data they get when they sell newspapers.
But actually your ideas don't even have to be interesting to be protected under the 1st amendment. I agree with you that censoring these clowns would be a bad idea, for ideological as welll as practical reasons.
But the history of Europe has been different from ours, and I appreciate that they may need different rules. We've never had anything quite like the Holocaust on American soil, thank god. (Yes, I haven't forgotten the American Indian.)
The 9th A. doesn't really do anything. at least as it's been construed for over 200 years. It is more a rule of construction for federal-state relations, a reminder that by default the powers not vested in the federal gov't lie with the states -- which states (even if you were correct) would be able to enumerate rights as you fear. Besides, most hate crime laws are state laws, and thoroughly constitutional.
If you don't believe me, try to find a law held unconstitutional under the 9th A. by the Supreme Court. There are plenty of federal laws enumerating certain acts, enacted under federal powers such as the 14th A.
A hate crime law merely singles out crimes committed with certain prohibited intents for greater punishment. This is consistent with the
The NYT has the fairest registration deal I've ever seen, less intrusive than even Slashdot that nearly everyone here finds acceptable. I've never seen a spam from them, and I do subscribe to a daily news bulletin they provide. For a free service, I think it's fair to provide them the minimal amount of information reg. provides, information they need to justify the service internally and to advertisers -- and it's less trouble than bending over backwards to tunnel around it.
/. -- and a show of support is something I'd encourage. We subscribe to the weekend editions despite online access; there's still something to be said for newsprint.
NYT has arguably the best free (for how much longer?) general news source online -- very frequent cited on
BTW, they do not track what you read; I looked into this, and was paranoid enough to send a specific inquiry. Besides, they don't really know who "you" are.
Henceforth there will be an exponentially increasing fine schedule for use of this phrase and its uninspired derivatives.
:)
Sorry.
Well, the merry file sharers are sharing, in a voluntary association amongst themselves -- I'll show you mine if you show me yours, or even if you don't -- as opposed to the victimized copyright holders. So maybe you want the term "cooperative leeches" or "distributed leeches"? Or, the proven old term "pirates."
Point well taken. Thievery by any other name would smell the same. But no one wants to be called a hypocrite, least of all by themselves.
I realize this may provide an unintentional springboard for speeches by the piracy rationalizers. To being it back sharply on-topic, if the broadband providers do need to contain costs I'd rather they try to single old the illegal uses first. (If they're doing this just to maximize profit, then we have a market failure.)
Back when VCR's were introduced to the public it was argued they would be used to violate copyright, but because the courts found VCR's had legitimate uses as well (your nephew bar mitzvah, etc.) they were not per se illegitimate.
I assume this is Morton Thiokol doing the testing? I'd sort of forgotten they still built the things after the Challenger disaster (not that it was their fault, I know NASA waived its own temperature regs), this article indicates they have a $2.4 billion contract through 2004.
Geez, 1+ million lbs. propellant per booster! Interesting, isn't it that Goddard developed liquid-fueled rockets as a modernization of solid-fueled rockets, then we later went back to solid fuel for so many applications. I guess solid fuel's biggest disadvantage is that you can't turn it off...
IIRC there were, at the outset of the shuttle program, proposals for a one-piece SRB casing. The only reason for a segmented booster was to facilitate shipping; a 1-piece could only have been delivered by barge. I think some politician or other was from UT, and well you get the picture.
1988 was 14 years ago! I don't know how rarely something has to occur to be rare, but this seems pretty rare to me. Not Halley's Comet rare, but rare enough to be a rare opportunity.
:) (Not terribly useful but interesting.)
Celestial lottery -- well, when is the next syzygy? Rare enough for ya?
Speaking of timing, the Voyager probes were launched as a time particularly suitable for a "Grand Tour" of the solar system. Really remarkable, the way they used gravitational slingshots and careful alignment to visit all the gas giants with a small amount of fuel. I can imagine the calculations for getting to the Moon and back, but interplanetary probes -- wow.
Cassini -- not to mention the Titan probe it will be dropping off. I hadn't even heard of that until the first Saturn pictures were sent back. I have trouble keeping track of the alphabet-soup of probes, but when they start sending back data, wow. One of the single strongest images I have from being a kid was the Viking shot of the Martian surface on the cover of National Geographic.
The NASA site has some excellent images, and individual project pages for people like me who need brushing up.
"Neat-o."
We can kind of imagine ourselves living on Mars -- not that it will happen anytime soon -- while Venus really is a hellhole. They've had trouble getting spaceships to withstand the pressure, never mind the temperature, and the atmosphere has lots of nasty stuff in it.
But Mars -- we can send cute little rovers to Mars, and it's that cool color.
Yes, I've seen both and agree. I was thinking, though, of a book with NASA's official imprimatur, assuming they know space better than anyone. As another poster indicated, NASA intended not a rebuke to conspiracy theorists but an educational volume for teachers etc., since the misconceptions and weird theories keep popping up.
Besdies, if Plait takes on astrology, well that's just going to make a lot of people mad. Astrology's real, or they wouldn't put it in the paper.
I'd love to see a survey of the general public's knowledge of space. Ever since that kid got a majority of people to agree dihydrogen monoxide should be banned, I've been worried.