In that case, I'd be more inclined to say the Borings should pay for Google's expenses, but that's obviously unfair given the cost of Google's legal team.
In any sane loser-pays system the loser would pay either a standard rate or their own legal costs to the winning party. Either way, the cost of Google's legal team would be irrelevant; if they want to spend extra that's their business, but it won't increase their compensation should they happen to win—only their cost if they lose, since they would essentially be forcing the other side to pay more for equivalent representation.
Of course, what's sane for plaintiffs and defendants may not be quite so beneficial for the lawyers... and they tend to be the ones who write the laws.
ePub I believe is partly documented but 100% owned by Adobe and only for Adobe's benefit.
The standard, DRM-free EPUB format is wholly documented, and is controlled by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), not Adobe. You can find the complete specs right here: IDPF EPUB Specifications.
The additional layer of encryption used by e.g. Barnes & Noble for their NOOK isn't exactly publicized, but any reader which can handle DRM'd EPUB files should also be able to handle standard ones. The NOOK certainly does.
The model underlying Bitcoin may provide a solution. Basically do the same thing, but with domains instead of virtual coins. The peers self-regulate the work required to solve the next block such that a fixed number of blocks (domains) are allocated per unit time; the allocation would be "first come first served", but there would be no possibility of mass registration. Once a name is allocated it can be updated at-will by the one holding its private key, or transferred to another user. Updates and transfers would take the place of Bitcoin's transactions, and be included as part of the next block.
If the end justifies the means, and the end is right, then the means are right.
If an action is "wrong" or "not right" that means you shouldn't do it. If it's "right" then that you are permitted to do it, or in some cases should do it. To say that some action is "not right" but that one "should keep doing it" is a contradiction.
I have no evidence that even one person asked anything else regarding air safety that day. So the number 100% is the valid number.
As you have no evidence, per Bayes' Theorem, the probability that any given person asked the question "Why didn't anyone stop those guys?" is 50%, with zero certainty. Not 100%.
And on 9/11 you were lucky if you didn't wish immediate vaporization on all people of brownish tint.
The incidence of racism, while far too high, is not quite so high as you project.
Within weeks we had the entire USAPATRIOT act passed.
The vote on that act was 337 to 79 in the House, and 98 to 1 in the Senate. Inasmuch as that vote reflects the demographics of the American people (you do believe in democracy, right?) that means support for the act was only 84.3% of the total when it was passed, and it's been dropping ever since as people see the results first-hand.
Martial law was a possibility, and in fact we sort of got it.
What we got, while bad enough in itself, was nothing like martial law. The DHS and TSA are civilian organizations, not military, and are personally and collectively required to act within the boundaries of the Constitution, not just follow orders. Under martial law the rules would be enforced by armed and uniformed military personnel, under military rules of engagement, and full responsibility for every action taken under orders would lie with the commander-in-chief who authorized it.
A permanent state of martial law of the sort necessary to prioritize safety above all other concerns was never even suggested.
[Panic-driven public opinion is] the sort of thing the DHS is working to prevent. They're just saddled with the ultra-low-IQ staff of the TSA to implement it, is all.
The DHS may possess marginally more institutional intelligence than the TSA (though I doubt it), but that doesn't make it one bit less wrong in both its intrusive methods and its impossible goals.
First, 99.9% is an incredible exaggeration. Obviously there was a period of panic right after the event, but even at its worst point I think more than 0.1% of the adult population recognized that it is manifestly impossible to prevent all attacks, even if we were willing to go so far as to impose full martial law in every public place—and even more would not be willing to go that far even if it were actually effective in stopping all attacks.
Exaggeration aside, however, if the DHS is basing its policies on (outdated) panic-driven poll results without regard to cost, liberty, or the reality that some attacks will get through, whatever they may do, then that is just one more example of the many things wrong with the DHS. Just because they want one concession or the other doesn't mean we have to give them either.
That is a false dichotomy. There are plenty of other options, including simply learning to accept reasonable levels of risk while traveling rather than allow a nebulous group of criminals to cheaply provoke us into destroying our own society for them in the name of "security".
I assume the GP meant that "a 1% return" was in real terms (inflation + 1%), not that inflation is significantly less than 1%. Even the official CPI numbers, the lowest estimate of inflation you'll find anywhere, are higher than that (about 1.2%).
Perhaps a better solution would be to pay for all the bits you send, or at least request. Implementing the second part efficiently may require some new protocols, but the basic idea would be to label each outgoing (non-reply) packet with a projected reply cost. Normal packets, including ones with this label, would be charged to the originating network, but packets which are marked as replies, which match the source and destination IDs in the original outgoing packet, and which do not cost more than their remaining balance, would be accepted at no additional charge—the cost of delivery is born by whoever requested the reply. To save on network resources the authorized amount should decay linearly over time, as compensation for storing this information in the router and a way of limiting the amount of memory required.
An example, with costs measured in packets:
X sends a SYN packet to port 80 on host Z. X authorizes one SYN-ACK packet in reply.
X's ISP charges the SYN packet to X's account, and notes that Z can charge one packet to X later.
Y, the network between X's ISP and Z's ISP, receives the SYN packet from X's ISP and charges it accordingly. Y also notes that Z can charge one packet to X's ISP later.
Z's ISP similarly notes that Z can charge one packet to Y.
Z receives the SYN packet. If Z decides not to reply at this point then the extra cost will simply expire unused, and X will not be charged.
On the other hand, if Z does decide to reply to X then it sends a SYN-ACK packet addressed as a reply from Z to X to Z's ISP.
Z's ISP notes the reply flag, looks up the balance and route (via Y) for reply packets from Z to X, and either forwards or drops the packet (perhaps with an ICMP message) depending on whether the reply balance has expired. If the reply is accepted then a charge is made to Y.
Y does the same, charging the packet to X's ISP.
X's ISP charges the packet to X's account.
X receives the reply to its SYN packet and repeats the process for the remaining packets.
No doubt there are some other wrinkles to deal with, like how to handle ordinary dropped packets, but I feel this is a workable framework provided the edge routers can handle the extra overhead of tracking balances. Note that this overhead can be skipped for interior routers if the operators do not mind covering the cost of any unauthorized replies which may be dropped later on—which is just the status quo anyway.
The door analogy is wrong simply because this is in no way related to trespassing. Cyberspace is just an abstraction. In reality, you're not entering anyone else's property when you access a web site. The internet is a communications mechanism, and you're just sending messages back and forth. The only traditional legal framework I know of regarding communication offenses is harassment, which might apply to a DoS attack or brute-force scanning of URLs or passwords, but not a simple request like this one.
This is much more like someone who recorded a private message (video) on their answering machine (server), and then tried to sue someone hearing the message (watching the video) without authorization on the basis that it was only intended for those who were given the number (URL) directly by the owner. So far as I know, simply calling a single unlisted number is not illegal, no matter how you came to have that number; if there is an automatic response then the one who set it up is responsible for the consequences. Requesting an unlisted URL should be no different.
No, I'm not. Demand is defined in economics as the goods offered in exchange. That includes both desire and ability to pay. Efficient allocation is based on demand, not simply desire.
How well your ability to demand goods matches your desires depends, of course, on your own personal productivity. In the absence of forcible intervention, people tend to have the ability to demand approximately as much as they produce.
The important point that you're missing is that currency behaves just like any other good. The shopkeeper's revenues must compete with all the other dollars in existence for the goods and services the shopkeeper requires (personal and business), just as those goods and services must in turn compete with all other goods and services for the higher-order goods (like raw resources and labor) required to produce them.
If the shopkeeper were to decide not to raise his prices despite the existence of more dollars in circulation, then he would receive the same revenues per candy bar sold and thus be limited to bidding for new ones at the same prices as he used to pay. However, other shopkeepers who did raise their prices can now outbid him, which means he won't be able to get enough new candy bars to replace his old stock; the same amount of dollars won't buy as many as it used to. If all the candy-bar retailers banded together and chose not to raise any of their prices then the same problem would still exist regarding the higher-order goods required to produce the candy bars in the first place. Some of these goods, such as labor, are common to all production, which means that all products compete with one another to some extent—and that injecting money anywhere will affect all prices eventually.
Essentially, in order to prevent a general rise in prices you would have to convince every single holder of dollars, including those who hold the newly-created ones, to act as though the supply hadn't changed. Good luck with that.:)
It would also eliminate the possibility for a group to sell surplus tickets at the entrance, but that's a small price to pay.
The venue could assist with this by buying back surplus tickets so long as demand continues. You may not be able to simply hand you ticket over to someone else, but the venue can always cancel your ticket and create a new one tied to a different fan.
That said, tickets should go to those who most value the event. Scalping exists because the venue creates a ticket shortage by setting their official prices too low; scalpers are just fixing the problem by balancing supply and demand. If you don't like dealing with scalpers, convince the venues to set their prices properly in the first place. Reasonable prices —> no shortages —> no opportunity for scalping.
No, if the show was really "sold out" then there would be no tickets available, from scalpers or official channels. The scalpers aren't going to use those tickets themselves, so they have to sell to someone before the show; ergo, scalping will not create a shortage. Any show which would sell out at the higher scalpers' price would sell out just as surely at the lower original price.
As for the service scalpers provide: If the price is kept artificially low, and scalping eliminated, then there will be people who were willing to give up more (pay a higher price) to attend, but couldn't because others who valued the show less highly already purchased the last tickets. Scalpers ensure tickets are allocated efficiently, i.e. to those with the greatest demand. This is normally considered a good thing, and if the official prices were set according to supply and demand in the first place then the scalpers would be out of a job.
If a band or venue really wants to hand out tickets by lottery rather than demand then they can always make the tickets non-transferable, e.g. by registering them to specific individuals at time of sale and refusing any without matching IDs.
That is correct. The ruling was half-right; I see no problem with judicial review per se—the Supreme Court ruling that a particular congressional action is unconstitutional. That is an internal matter regarding balance of power within the government. The problem is that the mere fact that the S.C. does not declare something unconstitutional does not automatically make it constitutional, and there is no official forum through which the other side (the People) can enforce their position on the matter. That makes the government, in the form of the S.C., the final arbiter of its own legal limits (short of a full-blown revolution).
No disrespect intended to artists, but (largely due to copyright) we already have far more "art" than we need—quite a bit of which barely qualifies as mediocre entertainment just a way to stave off boredom for a while. Certainly the end of copyright would lead to fewer artists, full-time or part-time. Those who remain will do so because (a) they want to, regardless of the degree of compensation; or (b) because they are good enough to attract the notice of individuals or organizations both desiring the creation of original work and having the means to pay for its production; old-fashioned patronage, essentially, but to membership- or donation-based groups (e.g. cultural societies, endowments for the arts, private libraries, fan clubs) rather than just a few wealthy individuals. I imagine (b) would be the dominant factor, but one need only look to sites like Magnatune and Jamendo to see that free distribution of copies is not an impediment to creativity.
Actually, it is the role of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to decide what the Founding Fathers intended.
Their self-appointed role, which just happens to be a major conflict of interest. In what other area would anyone permit an agreement as important as the U.S. Constitution to be interpreted entirely by one side—and worse yet, the side whose powers that document was specifically intended to strictly circumscribe? Separation of powers or not, in the long run that effectively amounts to handing the federal government a blank check.
It doesn't even indicate that the Constitution is overridden. It just says that the U.S. Constitution, the national laws which implement it, and national treaties, taken together, override state constitutions and state laws. It doesn't spell out any particular precedence between the various national elements. Based on just the quoted text, the U.S Constitution could still take precedence over treaties. After all, it certainly takes precedence over national laws, which are part of the same list.
This isn't about protected speech so much as forced speech, which must meet rather higher standards. It isn't even like labeling requirements, where they at least have the (bad) excuse that the label is a required part of a sale contract.
The ADA should apply only to public—i.e. government—facilities and services. Everything else is private, and if a private owner wishes to exclude any particular individual or group, based on any criteria, that is absolutely their right. To compel someone else to provide a service on your terms, involuntarily, is the very definition of slavery.
The majority has ruled that not believing the same things as them is an offense worthy of punishment. I am glad that the United States of America is not a democracy, it is a republic.
That's going in the right direction, but republics are ultimately just as answerable to prominent majority opinions as a direct democracy; it takes a bit longer to get the laws changed, but the will of the majority always wins out in the end. This is true of every system of government, BTW, even dictatorships—no government can survive active opposition from a majority of its citizens. They require at least acquiescence to maintain their control. A republic freely formed from Palestine's population would enforce Hamas' Islam at least as strictly as Palestine does now.
What really matters is not the form of government in effect, but a strong belief in freedom/liberty among the general population, plus the will to oppose anyone—even elected administration acting within the law—who may try to take that freedom away. In particular, if "law and order" becomes a higher priority than liberty then the country is doomed.
Perhaps the specific word can mean both "kill" and "murder", but only the "murder" interpretation avoids obvious contradictions with other passages in which individuals are specifically directed to kill others (e.g. to enforce the law itself, since many offenses require the death penalty).
Given two possible interpretations, one of which leads to a contradiction, the rule-of-thumb is always to pick the non-contradictory version. I'll leave the question of whether that is a reasonable interpretation of the original authors' meaning or simply a way of papering over real internal contradiction to the Bible apologists.
Not that I disagree with the general sentiment, but I don't think that reasoning can reasonably be inferred from your original comment. An 18-year-old is making the choice to allow their minor child to use a credit card—presumably just to spend their own money, not as "proof" of their majority. Doing so does not imply that they consent to (or even know about) any non-credit contract their child may enter into. It is absolutely not safe for Amazon or anyone else to simply assume that having a credit card means an adult was involved in the specific decision to substitute restricted materials for otherwise innocent gifts, particularly when the items aren't normal purchases and won't even show up on the monthly statements.
Having a credit card doesn't prove that you're over 18. It only proves that someone over 18 (a parent or guardian, or yourself if over 18) arranged for you to have a credit card. Minors can have their own personal cards with parental approval.
Under-18s can have their own personal credit cards these days, albeit only with their parent(s)' approval. Having the card proves that an adult approved the card, but not the specific online account.
Not really. You're missing the fact that normal return nets UPS three deliveries (Amazon -> gift -> recipient; recipient gift (return) -> Amazon; Amazon -> replacement -> recipient), whereas this process only requires one (Amazon -> replacement -> recipient). UPS is still involved, of course, but not as much as before.
Slashdot Mirror
In that case, I'd be more inclined to say the Borings should pay for Google's expenses, but that's obviously unfair given the cost of Google's legal team.
In any sane loser-pays system the loser would pay either a standard rate or their own legal costs to the winning party. Either way, the cost of Google's legal team would be irrelevant; if they want to spend extra that's their business, but it won't increase their compensation should they happen to win—only their cost if they lose, since they would essentially be forcing the other side to pay more for equivalent representation.
Of course, what's sane for plaintiffs and defendants may not be quite so beneficial for the lawyers ... and they tend to be the ones who write the laws.
ePub I believe is partly documented but 100% owned by Adobe and only for Adobe's benefit.
The standard, DRM-free EPUB format is wholly documented, and is controlled by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), not Adobe. You can find the complete specs right here: IDPF EPUB Specifications.
The additional layer of encryption used by e.g. Barnes & Noble for their NOOK isn't exactly publicized, but any reader which can handle DRM'd EPUB files should also be able to handle standard ones. The NOOK certainly does.
The model underlying Bitcoin may provide a solution. Basically do the same thing, but with domains instead of virtual coins. The peers self-regulate the work required to solve the next block such that a fixed number of blocks (domains) are allocated per unit time; the allocation would be "first come first served", but there would be no possibility of mass registration. Once a name is allocated it can be updated at-will by the one holding its private key, or transferred to another user. Updates and transfers would take the place of Bitcoin's transactions, and be included as part of the next block.
If the end justifies the means, and the end is right, then the means are right.
If an action is "wrong" or "not right" that means you shouldn't do it. If it's "right" then that you are permitted to do it, or in some cases should do it. To say that some action is "not right" but that one "should keep doing it" is a contradiction.
I have no evidence that even one person asked anything else regarding air safety that day. So the number 100% is the valid number.
As you have no evidence, per Bayes' Theorem, the probability that any given person asked the question "Why didn't anyone stop those guys?" is 50%, with zero certainty. Not 100%.
And on 9/11 you were lucky if you didn't wish immediate vaporization on all people of brownish tint.
The incidence of racism, while far too high, is not quite so high as you project.
Within weeks we had the entire USAPATRIOT act passed.
The vote on that act was 337 to 79 in the House, and 98 to 1 in the Senate. Inasmuch as that vote reflects the demographics of the American people (you do believe in democracy, right?) that means support for the act was only 84.3% of the total when it was passed, and it's been dropping ever since as people see the results first-hand.
Martial law was a possibility, and in fact we sort of got it.
What we got, while bad enough in itself, was nothing like martial law. The DHS and TSA are civilian organizations, not military, and are personally and collectively required to act within the boundaries of the Constitution, not just follow orders. Under martial law the rules would be enforced by armed and uniformed military personnel, under military rules of engagement, and full responsibility for every action taken under orders would lie with the commander-in-chief who authorized it.
A permanent state of martial law of the sort necessary to prioritize safety above all other concerns was never even suggested.
[Panic-driven public opinion is] the sort of thing the DHS is working to prevent. They're just saddled with the ultra-low-IQ staff of the TSA to implement it, is all.
The DHS may possess marginally more institutional intelligence than the TSA (though I doubt it), but that doesn't make it one bit less wrong in both its intrusive methods and its impossible goals.
First, 99.9% is an incredible exaggeration. Obviously there was a period of panic right after the event, but even at its worst point I think more than 0.1% of the adult population recognized that it is manifestly impossible to prevent all attacks, even if we were willing to go so far as to impose full martial law in every public place—and even more would not be willing to go that far even if it were actually effective in stopping all attacks.
Exaggeration aside, however, if the DHS is basing its policies on (outdated) panic-driven poll results without regard to cost, liberty, or the reality that some attacks will get through, whatever they may do, then that is just one more example of the many things wrong with the DHS. Just because they want one concession or the other doesn't mean we have to give them either.
That is a false dichotomy. There are plenty of other options, including simply learning to accept reasonable levels of risk while traveling rather than allow a nebulous group of criminals to cheaply provoke us into destroying our own society for them in the name of "security".
I assume the GP meant that "a 1% return" was in real terms (inflation + 1%), not that inflation is significantly less than 1%. Even the official CPI numbers, the lowest estimate of inflation you'll find anywhere, are higher than that (about 1.2%).
Perhaps a better solution would be to pay for all the bits you send, or at least request. Implementing the second part efficiently may require some new protocols, but the basic idea would be to label each outgoing (non-reply) packet with a projected reply cost. Normal packets, including ones with this label, would be charged to the originating network, but packets which are marked as replies, which match the source and destination IDs in the original outgoing packet, and which do not cost more than their remaining balance, would be accepted at no additional charge—the cost of delivery is born by whoever requested the reply. To save on network resources the authorized amount should decay linearly over time, as compensation for storing this information in the router and a way of limiting the amount of memory required.
An example, with costs measured in packets:
X's ISP charges the SYN packet to X's account, and notes that Z can charge one packet to X later.
No doubt there are some other wrinkles to deal with, like how to handle ordinary dropped packets, but I feel this is a workable framework provided the edge routers can handle the extra overhead of tracking balances. Note that this overhead can be skipped for interior routers if the operators do not mind covering the cost of any unauthorized replies which may be dropped later on—which is just the status quo anyway.
The door analogy is wrong simply because this is in no way related to trespassing. Cyberspace is just an abstraction. In reality, you're not entering anyone else's property when you access a web site. The internet is a communications mechanism, and you're just sending messages back and forth. The only traditional legal framework I know of regarding communication offenses is harassment, which might apply to a DoS attack or brute-force scanning of URLs or passwords, but not a simple request like this one.
This is much more like someone who recorded a private message (video) on their answering machine (server), and then tried to sue someone hearing the message (watching the video) without authorization on the basis that it was only intended for those who were given the number (URL) directly by the owner. So far as I know, simply calling a single unlisted number is not illegal, no matter how you came to have that number; if there is an automatic response then the one who set it up is responsible for the consequences. Requesting an unlisted URL should be no different.
No, I'm not. Demand is defined in economics as the goods offered in exchange. That includes both desire and ability to pay. Efficient allocation is based on demand, not simply desire.
How well your ability to demand goods matches your desires depends, of course, on your own personal productivity. In the absence of forcible intervention, people tend to have the ability to demand approximately as much as they produce.
The important point that you're missing is that currency behaves just like any other good. The shopkeeper's revenues must compete with all the other dollars in existence for the goods and services the shopkeeper requires (personal and business), just as those goods and services must in turn compete with all other goods and services for the higher-order goods (like raw resources and labor) required to produce them.
If the shopkeeper were to decide not to raise his prices despite the existence of more dollars in circulation, then he would receive the same revenues per candy bar sold and thus be limited to bidding for new ones at the same prices as he used to pay. However, other shopkeepers who did raise their prices can now outbid him, which means he won't be able to get enough new candy bars to replace his old stock; the same amount of dollars won't buy as many as it used to. If all the candy-bar retailers banded together and chose not to raise any of their prices then the same problem would still exist regarding the higher-order goods required to produce the candy bars in the first place. Some of these goods, such as labor, are common to all production, which means that all products compete with one another to some extent—and that injecting money anywhere will affect all prices eventually.
Essentially, in order to prevent a general rise in prices you would have to convince every single holder of dollars, including those who hold the newly-created ones, to act as though the supply hadn't changed. Good luck with that. :)
It would also eliminate the possibility for a group to sell surplus tickets at the entrance, but that's a small price to pay.
The venue could assist with this by buying back surplus tickets so long as demand continues. You may not be able to simply hand you ticket over to someone else, but the venue can always cancel your ticket and create a new one tied to a different fan.
That said, tickets should go to those who most value the event. Scalping exists because the venue creates a ticket shortage by setting their official prices too low; scalpers are just fixing the problem by balancing supply and demand. If you don't like dealing with scalpers, convince the venues to set their prices properly in the first place. Reasonable prices —> no shortages —> no opportunity for scalping.
No, if the show was really "sold out" then there would be no tickets available, from scalpers or official channels. The scalpers aren't going to use those tickets themselves, so they have to sell to someone before the show; ergo, scalping will not create a shortage. Any show which would sell out at the higher scalpers' price would sell out just as surely at the lower original price.
As for the service scalpers provide: If the price is kept artificially low, and scalping eliminated, then there will be people who were willing to give up more (pay a higher price) to attend, but couldn't because others who valued the show less highly already purchased the last tickets. Scalpers ensure tickets are allocated efficiently, i.e. to those with the greatest demand. This is normally considered a good thing, and if the official prices were set according to supply and demand in the first place then the scalpers would be out of a job.
If a band or venue really wants to hand out tickets by lottery rather than demand then they can always make the tickets non-transferable, e.g. by registering them to specific individuals at time of sale and refusing any without matching IDs.
Marbury vs. Madison, wasn't it?
That is correct. The ruling was half-right; I see no problem with judicial review per se—the Supreme Court ruling that a particular congressional action is unconstitutional. That is an internal matter regarding balance of power within the government. The problem is that the mere fact that the S.C. does not declare something unconstitutional does not automatically make it constitutional, and there is no official forum through which the other side (the People) can enforce their position on the matter. That makes the government, in the form of the S.C., the final arbiter of its own legal limits (short of a full-blown revolution).
And society loses by losing an artist.
No disrespect intended to artists, but (largely due to copyright) we already have far more "art" than we need—quite a bit of which barely qualifies as mediocre entertainment just a way to stave off boredom for a while. Certainly the end of copyright would lead to fewer artists, full-time or part-time. Those who remain will do so because (a) they want to, regardless of the degree of compensation; or (b) because they are good enough to attract the notice of individuals or organizations both desiring the creation of original work and having the means to pay for its production; old-fashioned patronage, essentially, but to membership- or donation-based groups (e.g. cultural societies, endowments for the arts, private libraries, fan clubs) rather than just a few wealthy individuals. I imagine (b) would be the dominant factor, but one need only look to sites like Magnatune and Jamendo to see that free distribution of copies is not an impediment to creativity.
Actually, it is the role of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to decide what the Founding Fathers intended.
Their self-appointed role, which just happens to be a major conflict of interest. In what other area would anyone permit an agreement as important as the U.S. Constitution to be interpreted entirely by one side—and worse yet, the side whose powers that document was specifically intended to strictly circumscribe? Separation of powers or not, in the long run that effectively amounts to handing the federal government a blank check.
It doesn't even indicate that the Constitution is overridden. It just says that the U.S. Constitution, the national laws which implement it, and national treaties, taken together, override state constitutions and state laws. It doesn't spell out any particular precedence between the various national elements. Based on just the quoted text, the U.S Constitution could still take precedence over treaties. After all, it certainly takes precedence over national laws, which are part of the same list.
This isn't about protected speech so much as forced speech, which must meet rather higher standards. It isn't even like labeling requirements, where they at least have the (bad) excuse that the label is a required part of a sale contract.
The ADA should apply only to public—i.e. government—facilities and services. Everything else is private, and if a private owner wishes to exclude any particular individual or group, based on any criteria, that is absolutely their right. To compel someone else to provide a service on your terms, involuntarily, is the very definition of slavery.
The majority has ruled that not believing the same things as them is an offense worthy of punishment. I am glad that the United States of America is not a democracy, it is a republic.
That's going in the right direction, but republics are ultimately just as answerable to prominent majority opinions as a direct democracy; it takes a bit longer to get the laws changed, but the will of the majority always wins out in the end. This is true of every system of government, BTW, even dictatorships—no government can survive active opposition from a majority of its citizens. They require at least acquiescence to maintain their control. A republic freely formed from Palestine's population would enforce Hamas' Islam at least as strictly as Palestine does now.
What really matters is not the form of government in effect, but a strong belief in freedom/liberty among the general population, plus the will to oppose anyone—even elected administration acting within the law—who may try to take that freedom away. In particular, if "law and order" becomes a higher priority than liberty then the country is doomed.
Perhaps the specific word can mean both "kill" and "murder", but only the "murder" interpretation avoids obvious contradictions with other passages in which individuals are specifically directed to kill others (e.g. to enforce the law itself, since many offenses require the death penalty).
Given two possible interpretations, one of which leads to a contradiction, the rule-of-thumb is always to pick the non-contradictory version. I'll leave the question of whether that is a reasonable interpretation of the original authors' meaning or simply a way of papering over real internal contradiction to the Bible apologists.
Not that I disagree with the general sentiment, but I don't think that reasoning can reasonably be inferred from your original comment. An 18-year-old is making the choice to allow their minor child to use a credit card—presumably just to spend their own money, not as "proof" of their majority. Doing so does not imply that they consent to (or even know about) any non-credit contract their child may enter into. It is absolutely not safe for Amazon or anyone else to simply assume that having a credit card means an adult was involved in the specific decision to substitute restricted materials for otherwise innocent gifts, particularly when the items aren't normal purchases and won't even show up on the monthly statements.
Having a credit card doesn't prove that you're over 18. It only proves that someone over 18 (a parent or guardian, or yourself if over 18) arranged for you to have a credit card. Minors can have their own personal cards with parental approval.
Under-18s can have their own personal credit cards these days, albeit only with their parent(s)' approval. Having the card proves that an adult approved the card, but not the specific online account.
Not really. You're missing the fact that normal return nets UPS three deliveries (Amazon -> gift -> recipient; recipient gift (return) -> Amazon; Amazon -> replacement -> recipient), whereas this process only requires one (Amazon -> replacement -> recipient). UPS is still involved, of course, but not as much as before.