This kind of stuff is exactly why I don't like the idea of a "geek" PAC... The second it gets a little money it's going to be hijacked into a labor union (i.e. someone you pay to tell you you can't work, protection-racket style).
And that's the last thing I need.
-- Benjamin Coates
P.S. If you can't compete with the foreigners, it's time to get a new job.
I don't have statistics on the breakdown of how the NRA gets funded, but I'd say it's a safe bet that at least 80% of their money comes from gun manufacturers.
the best i could find with a quick google has the VPC (violence policy center, basically and anti-NRA group) saying this:
The study documents for the first time gun industry funding of NRA activities. Tax-deductible money donated by manufacturers of firearms, ammunition, and related products is funneled through the NRA's tax-exempt sister organization, The NRA Foundation. The VPC has uncovered at the very minimum hundreds of thousands of gun-industry dollars donated to The NRA Foundation. These funds are then transferred to the NRA in the form of "grants." The NRA then uses these "grants" to fund the Eddie Eagle program and other activities
(eddie eagle program is the NRA's gun safety project for children, or as the VPC calls it, "Joe Camel with feathers")
Which makes it seem that the NRA claims to not accept donations from the gun industry at all (although i can't find an NRA quote to that effect). That actually makes sense since the NRA's hard-line stance on gun regulation actually puts it up against gun manufacturers who would like to reach a compromise with the government in order to preserve their contracts with the biggest weapon buyer of them all, the US government.
I wonder what the operating budget of the NRA is. Anybody have an idea?
National Rifle Association (NRA) is the nation's largest lobbying organization for gun owners/gun industry with over 3 million members and an annual budget of $168 million (Source: The Washington Post, August 6, 2000).
And if I shot a priest in the act of raping a child (or setting an occupied building on fire- that's the other case) then I would expect to be protected by the law. Unless you plan on raping children within my sight sometime soon.
Your state's pretty strict, a lot of places let you shoot someone to prevent serious bodily harm to a third person.
Colorado (and maybe some other places) let you shoot an armed person that has or is about to break into your property, if you believe they're dangerous.
Reading their opinion, it looked to me that they didn't think it was impossible to enforce the law in a constitutional way--that is, it should be decided on a case-by-case basis instead of just striking down the law. Note that even getting the supreme court to *consider* striking down a law on it's face (as opposed to ruling that under one set of circumstances, the law is being applied unconstitutionally) is pretty rare, so they might have sided with the defendants if anyone was prosecuted under the law.
So by your reasoning, it is ok to yell fire in a crowded movie theater? Cause banning my yelling fire in a crowded movie theater would impenge on my rights. Never mind the people that may be trampled in the process.
Does that actually work? Can we get some random trouble maker to scream out "fire! the theater's on fire" and see if people actually panic and trample each other? Frankly, the example doesn't make much sense to me, and the supreme court decision it came from is questionable at best, as it was aimed at suppressing political speech (advocating objection to millitary service in WWI, if i remember right)
KKK members can't run around saying that all niggers should be tortured and killed
It is my understanding that they can, do, and get away with it. It has to pose a clear and present danger that someone will commit a specific crime, not just advocate criminal behavior in general (iirc)
As for your second point, ask the actress again. As for the Mayor of New York - he never asked to be a part of that campaign and his words and image are plastered all over Gotham. Is that fair? No... it's just legal.
It's perfectly fair, he's being a hypocrite for having thousands of people prosecuted for criminal behavior he admits to doing and even liking... the NORML ads are just calling him on it.
Note that this decision doesn't prevent prosecuting the distribution of virtual child pornography on the grounds that it is obscene.
Obscenity is not protected speech, and the legal definition of obscenity is when "the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, is patently offensive in light of community standards, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value"
I don't think it would be difficult to prosecute "hard core" child porn, real or fake, under that definition, which is exactly what Atty. Gen. Ashcroft is planning on doing.
What was overturned was extending a prohibition against non-obscene child porn on the basis of the harm it does to the real chidren, to fake child porn that does not harm real children and is not obscene.
Let us inject some concreteness into the discussion. Suppose that the Wonderland Club might have gone free with nothing more than a few strokes of the smudge tool. These guys would have had a more difficult job making their torture videos look fake, but technology would've permitted it in a few years. No, I don't like the idea of restricting anything virtual, but propose a solution then, if you can think of one.
Find one real victim, or any physical evidence at all that what is depicted in the images actually happened--even if it were something that alone wouldn't be enough to get a child abuse conviction, taken together with the photographic evidence a reasonable jury would believe the images werr non-fake. Police successufully prosceute crimes all the time *without* images of the crime being widely distributed, so enforcing laws against (real) child porn should be easier, not harder, than other crimes, even if it is not possible from the image alone whether it is real or fake.
I keep most of the books I buy, since I use technical books more for reference than to sit down and memorize, and good fiction and political type books are worth reading more than once.
I'm not getting something for nothing if i resell a book.
You need to delineate two environments in order to clean one of them.
In this case, the proposed delineation is air/ground. I think this is dubious at best.
The amount of carbon in the air, by mass, isn't that much (on the scale we're talking about). You pollute a small amount of ground (which is plentiful) to clean all the air.
Coal is very plentiful, we have hundreds of years worth at least. No great shortage of natural gas, and if this oil shale thing ever gets going (doubtful, but what do i know?), we'll have plenty of oil.
776,960 acres if i did my math right... so less than one tenth of a state you could drop on wyoming without anyone noticing. And it doesn't really have to be one huge facility...
See, if you buy software from BSA members, they have clauses about the BSA in the license. Specifically for MS, if you enter into an "eOpen", "Volume", "Solution Provider", or "Reseller" license, they all have notices and clauses allowing MS or a 3rd party to audit you at your expense. Okay, get it? People who submit to the BSA also waive rights to sue them. But, it is likely that they have never had an audit that didnt find problems, because they only as a rule go after extreme violators.
Wouldn't most "extreme violators" have never signed a BSA licence because they always copy software instead of buying it?
Not that anyone who owns a very expensive car is going to let some random shmuck drive it. Which is what a drivers license is for, to show that this random shmuck (who in this case may be your son or daughter) is actually capable of operating the thing without a high likelihood of smashing it into a telephone pole.
If my (hypothetical) kids are stupid enough to try to drive a car without knowing how, what would keep them from driving without a licence?
The real problem here is that there was a gap -- a need for people to prove that they were who they say they are, for example -- and an inappropriate entity stepped in to fill the void. People are all too willing to accept the DMV acting as the default ID card arbiter because most people don't want to have to be responsible for two trips to a government office.
Fair enough. Perhaps it would be desireable to take steps to prevent the usage of drivers licences as identification--The police all have terminals in their cars to check out licences(they don't really work for their supposed purpose, too easy to forge), so the card is redundant, just tell the officer enough information to look you up (name, address, ssn, dob, whatever), they key it into the machine and it comes up with identifying information on the terminal and confirmation that you're legal to drive. It would be more convenient and just as effective, and would allow proof of identity to be a seperate matter.
If people still want some sort of physical artifact to act as a licence, have the dmv print out a couple of paper licences(like they give while you wait for your plastic licence to be mailed in some places), unsuitable for leaving in a wallet any length of time, that you'd leave with your registration and proof of insurance in the glove box.
The point being to allow the nutjobs to opt out of having any official ID without revoking their right to drive, and keep doing their job of forcing freedom on the rest of y'all whether you want it or not:)
There's a big difference between height, weight, hair color, etc... and a fingerprint or (if it worked) face biometric. The former (and the photo) make it nontrivial for one person to use another's licence, but they aren't enough to uniquely identify someone in an automated fashion--the police don't go get a printout of everyone 6'1" 210lbs brown hair/brown eyes when someone of that description commits a crime because they'd get a uselessly long list.
But a fingerprint can be lifted from a crime scene and be matched to one or a few people with relative ease... For me, it's not so much as a fourth-amendment type privacy concern as it is forcing me to assist in my own prosecution, violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the fifth amendment.
It shouldn't be necessary to explain how the increase in the number of cars would correspond with increased regulations as to the operation of those vehicles.
Sure, but how does this make driver licences necessary? Vehicles are licenced, tested, and insured seperatly from drivers anyway, and it's not like the lack of identification makes it impossible to enforce traffic laws any more than the lack of pedestrian licences makes it impossible to enforce jaywalking laws, or the lack of id cards makes it impossible to enforce criminal law.
The Wright Brothers didn't need pilot licenses either. Are you going to get in a 747 with an unlicensed pilot?
No, i'm not stupid enough to do something just because it's legal. Not that anyone who owns a very expensive 747 is going to let some random shmuck fly it.
Would you like to live near an airport where anyone can jump in a Cessna regardless of training?
*shrug* Wouldn't really care, the odds of being hit by a small plane are probably right up there with leprosy or winning lotto.
"Motor Vehicle" is an important one. Definition in Title 18 USC 31 - "Motor vehicle" means every description or other contrivance propelled or drawn by mechanical power and used for commercial purposes on the highways in the transportation of passengers, or passengers and property."
That makes sense, as that's a defintion from federal law, which has the power to regulate interstate commerce--so federal motor vehicle law generally only covers commercial vehicles. (i'm ignoring federal safety/environmental laws here, but those are usually just funding tie-ins to coerce the States into passing conforming state laws.)
You don't have to have a federal driver's licence, if such a thing exists it's only for semi-truck drivers and the like, not personal vehicles.
Looking at state law, this is from the California Vehicle Code:
415. (a) A "motor vehicle" is a vehicle that is self-propelled.
(b) "Motor vehicle" does not include a self-propelled wheelchair, invalid tricycle, or motorized quadricycle when operated by a person who, by reason of physical disability, is otherwise unable to move about as a pedestrian.
"Driver" is another one, definition from Bovier's Law Dictionary - "One employed in conducting a coach, carriage, wagon, or other vehicle..."
'employed in' here most likely means 'performing the action of', not 'is hired to'. The language in that sentence is pretty crusty...
This is no different than companies using spyware to monitor employees, or reading their email or whatever.
Well, yes. They're both a horrible abuse of someone's privacy and should be illegal, if they aren't already.
The computer, if given to the professor, is the property of the university, and they can do with it what they wish, including reading her email.
The bank or your landlord is probably the legal owner of where you live... I suppose that gives them the right to search your property whenever they please?
buckets of spam and power outages for the rest of their lives
Not getting a job near a computer again would work, too... If it's legal to post the name and address of doctors who perform abortions, it's probabaly legal to publish a "blacklist" of people that have accepted BSA/RIAA/etc. snitch money, right?
Slashdot Mirror
How is it illegal? They have visas...
This kind of stuff is exactly why I don't like the idea of a "geek" PAC... The second it gets a little money it's going to be hijacked into a labor union (i.e. someone you pay to tell you you can't work, protection-racket style).
And that's the last thing I need.
--
Benjamin Coates
P.S. If you can't compete with the foreigners, it's time to get a new job.
the best i could find with a quick google has the VPC (violence policy center, basically and anti-NRA group) saying this:
(eddie eagle program is the NRA's gun safety project for children, or as the VPC calls it, "Joe Camel with feathers")
Which makes it seem that the NRA claims to not accept donations from the gun industry at all (although i can't find an NRA quote to that effect). That actually makes sense since the NRA's hard-line stance on gun regulation actually puts it up against gun manufacturers who would like to reach a compromise with the government in order to preserve their contracts with the biggest weapon buyer of them all, the US government.
I wonder what the operating budget of the NRA is. Anybody have an idea?
this:
--
Benjamin Coates
And if I shot a priest in the act of raping a child (or setting an occupied building on fire- that's the other case) then I would expect to be protected by the law. Unless you plan on raping children within my sight sometime soon.
Your state's pretty strict, a lot of places let you shoot someone to prevent serious bodily harm to a third person.
Colorado (and maybe some other places) let you shoot an armed person that has or is about to break into your property, if you believe they're dangerous.
--
Benjamin Coates
Reading their opinion, it looked to me that they didn't think it was impossible to enforce the law in a constitutional way--that is, it should be decided on a case-by-case basis instead of just striking down the law. Note that even getting the supreme court to *consider* striking down a law on it's face (as opposed to ruling that under one set of circumstances, the law is being applied unconstitutionally) is pretty rare, so they might have sided with the defendants if anyone was prosecuted under the law.
--
Benjamin Coates
So by your reasoning, it is ok to yell fire in a crowded movie theater? Cause banning my yelling fire in a crowded movie theater would impenge on my rights. Never mind the people that may be trampled in the process.
Does that actually work? Can we get some random trouble maker to scream out "fire! the theater's on fire" and see if people actually panic and trample each other? Frankly, the example doesn't make much sense to me, and the supreme court decision it came from is questionable at best, as it was aimed at suppressing political speech (advocating objection to millitary service in WWI, if i remember right)
KKK members can't run around saying that all niggers should be tortured and killed
It is my understanding that they can, do, and get away with it. It has to pose a clear and present danger that someone will commit a specific crime, not just advocate criminal behavior in general (iirc)
--
Benjamin Coates
Does this allow someone to take a picture of a child and manipulate it in a sexual way?
The law being challenged has a seperate section outlawing that, the court did not address it this time, so it's still illegal for now.
--
Benjamin Coates
As for your second point, ask the actress again. As for the Mayor of New York - he never asked to be a part of that campaign and his words and image are plastered all over Gotham. Is that fair? No... it's just legal.
It's perfectly fair, he's being a hypocrite for having thousands of people prosecuted for criminal behavior he admits to doing and even liking... the NORML ads are just calling him on it.
--
Benjamin Coates
Do I seriously need to explain WHY there is a problem with the idea that fake kiddie porn is alright or acceptable?
Um, yeah, you do. They're just pictures, man.
Note that this decision doesn't prevent prosecuting the distribution of virtual child pornography on the grounds that it is obscene.
Obscenity is not protected speech, and the legal definition of obscenity is when "the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, is patently offensive in light of community standards, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value"
I don't think it would be difficult to prosecute "hard core" child porn, real or fake, under that definition, which is exactly what Atty. Gen. Ashcroft is planning on doing.
What was overturned was extending a prohibition against non-obscene child porn on the basis of the harm it does to the real chidren, to fake child porn that does not harm real children and is not obscene.
--
Benjamin Coates
Let us inject some concreteness into the discussion. Suppose that the Wonderland Club might have gone free with nothing more than a few strokes of the smudge tool. These guys would have had a more difficult job making their torture videos look fake, but technology would've permitted it in a few years. No, I don't like the idea of restricting anything virtual, but propose a solution then, if you can think of one.
Find one real victim, or any physical evidence at all that what is depicted in the images actually happened--even if it were something that alone wouldn't be enough to get a child abuse conviction, taken together with the photographic evidence a reasonable jury would believe the images werr non-fake. Police successufully prosceute crimes all the time *without* images of the crime being widely distributed, so enforcing laws against (real) child porn should be easier, not harder, than other crimes, even if it is not possible from the image alone whether it is real or fake.
--
Benjamin Coates
How many trees have been saved because people bought used books?
Probably none, I would assume that if demand for new paper pulp goes down, less trees are planted to be made into paper in the first place...
--
Benjamin Coates
I keep most of the books I buy, since I use technical books more for reference than to sit down and memorize, and good fiction and political type books are worth reading more than once.
I'm not getting something for nothing if i resell a book.
--
Benjamin Coates
Good point.
Small nitpick on the text tho--that last sentence should have read:
"For what it is worth, I bought the new grill at Amazon"
--
Benjamin Coates
You need to delineate two environments in order to clean one of them.
In this case, the proposed delineation is air/ground. I think this is dubious at best.
The amount of carbon in the air, by mass, isn't that much (on the scale we're talking about). You pollute a small amount of ground (which is plentiful) to clean all the air.
--
Benjamin Coates
Coal is very plentiful, we have hundreds of years worth at least. No great shortage of natural gas, and if this oil shale thing ever gets going (doubtful, but what do i know?), we'll have plenty of oil.
--
Benjamin Coates
Quiz: How big is Rhode Island?
776,960 acres if i did my math right... so less than one tenth of a state you could drop on wyoming without anyone noticing. And it doesn't really have to be one huge facility...
--
Benjamin Coates
See, if you buy software from BSA members, they have clauses about the BSA in the license. Specifically for MS, if you enter into an "eOpen", "Volume", "Solution Provider", or "Reseller" license, they all have notices and clauses allowing MS or a 3rd party to audit you at your expense. Okay, get it?
People who submit to the BSA also waive rights to sue them. But, it is likely that they have never had an audit that didnt find problems, because they only as a rule go after extreme violators.
Wouldn't most "extreme violators" have never signed a BSA licence because they always copy software instead of buying it?
--
Benjamin Coates
Not that anyone who owns a very expensive car is going to let some random shmuck drive it. Which is what a drivers license is for, to show that this random shmuck (who in this case may be your son or daughter) is actually capable of operating the thing without a high likelihood of smashing it into a telephone pole.
If my (hypothetical) kids are stupid enough to try to drive a car without knowing how, what would keep them from driving without a licence?
--
Benjamin Coates
The real problem here is that there was a gap -- a need for people to prove that they were who they say they are, for example -- and an inappropriate entity stepped in to fill the void. People are all too willing to accept the DMV acting as the default ID card arbiter because most people don't want to have to be responsible for two trips to a government office.
:)
Fair enough. Perhaps it would be desireable to take steps to prevent the usage of drivers licences as identification--The police all have terminals in their cars to check out licences(they don't really work for their supposed purpose, too easy to forge), so the card is redundant, just tell the officer enough information to look you up (name, address, ssn, dob, whatever), they key it into the machine and it comes up with identifying information on the terminal and confirmation that you're legal to drive. It would be more convenient and just as effective, and would allow proof of identity to be a seperate matter.
If people still want some sort of physical artifact to act as a licence, have the dmv print out a couple of paper licences(like they give while you wait for your plastic licence to be mailed in some places), unsuitable for leaving in a wallet any length of time, that you'd leave with your registration and proof of insurance in the glove box.
The point being to allow the nutjobs to opt out of having any official ID without revoking their right to drive, and keep doing their job of forcing freedom on the rest of y'all whether you want it or not
--
Benjamin Coates
There's a big difference between height, weight, hair color, etc... and a fingerprint or (if it worked) face biometric. The former (and the photo) make it nontrivial for one person to use another's licence, but they aren't enough to uniquely identify someone in an automated fashion--the police don't go get a printout of everyone 6'1" 210lbs brown hair/brown eyes when someone of that description commits a crime because they'd get a uselessly long list.
But a fingerprint can be lifted from a crime scene and be matched to one or a few people with relative ease... For me, it's not so much as a fourth-amendment type privacy concern as it is forcing me to assist in my own prosecution, violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the fifth amendment.
--
Benjamin Coates
It shouldn't be necessary to explain how the increase in the number of cars would correspond with increased regulations as to the operation of those vehicles.
Sure, but how does this make driver licences necessary? Vehicles are licenced, tested, and insured seperatly from drivers anyway, and it's not like the lack of identification makes it impossible to enforce traffic laws any more than the lack of pedestrian licences makes it impossible to enforce jaywalking laws, or the lack of id cards makes it impossible to enforce criminal law.
The Wright Brothers didn't need pilot licenses either. Are you going to get in a 747 with an unlicensed pilot?
No, i'm not stupid enough to do something just because it's legal. Not that anyone who owns a very expensive 747 is going to let some random shmuck fly it.
Would you like to live near an airport where anyone can jump in a Cessna regardless of training?
*shrug* Wouldn't really care, the odds of being hit by a small plane are probably right up there with leprosy or winning lotto.
No? Then shut the hell up.
Good to see civilised debate is alive and well.
--
Benjamin Coates
That makes sense, as that's a defintion from federal law, which has the power to regulate interstate commerce--so federal motor vehicle law generally only covers commercial vehicles. (i'm ignoring federal safety/environmental laws here, but those are usually just funding tie-ins to coerce the States into passing conforming state laws.)
You don't have to have a federal driver's licence, if such a thing exists it's only for semi-truck drivers and the like, not personal vehicles.
Looking at state law, this is from the California Vehicle Code:
"Driver" is another one, definition from Bovier's Law Dictionary - "One employed in conducting a coach, carriage, wagon, or other vehicle..."
'employed in' here most likely means 'performing the action of', not 'is hired to'. The language in that sentence is pretty crusty...
--
Benjamin Coates
This is no different than companies using spyware to monitor employees, or reading their email or whatever.
Well, yes. They're both a horrible abuse of someone's privacy and should be illegal, if they aren't already.
The computer, if given to the professor, is the property of the university, and they can do with it what they wish, including reading her email.
The bank or your landlord is probably the legal owner of where you live... I suppose that gives them the right to search your property whenever they please?
--
Benjamin Coates
buckets of spam and power outages for the rest of their lives
Not getting a job near a computer again would work, too... If it's legal to post the name and address of doctors who perform abortions, it's probabaly legal to publish a "blacklist" of people that have accepted BSA/RIAA/etc. snitch money, right?
--
Benjamin Coates