By "Capitalism" the poster means "Free Market Capitalism." The two terms are often used interchangably. A free market does not exist in the presence of trusts or monopolies, therefore the existence of cartels is said to be the antithesis of Free Market Capitalism, here shortened to just Capitalism.
Case VI: Your a farmer and the govenement tells you you can grow so many bushells on your land. You grow more but you plan to use them only for internal consumption on the property. Can you do that? seems like you could but infact you can't
I'll have to look up this case, but that is a rather serious issue if it's as simple as you state.
That case involved a New Deal era law designed to create agricultural price supports. I don't think the law is still on the books, but the case made it all the way to the Supreme Court and the law was held constitutional. That precident is important in the court's definition of the Federal Government's powers derived from the Commerce Clause as supplimented by the Necessary and Proper Clause. Recently John Roberts was asked about the case in his confirmation hearings. He refused to comment because it is relevant to cases as recent as Gonzales v. Raich, this year's case in which the court held that the Federal government could take action against users of state-allowed medical marijuana.
Irrationally claiming your country is better than any other, and refusing to countenance arguments or facts that indicate otherwise. And you're doing that very well, thanks.
So me arguing that my nation has problems but is not fascist based on facts counts as a demonstration of nationalism to the point of fascism?
Founding Fathers... slaves... all people.. 200-year-old bit of paper
The constitution is not perfect, nor were the founding fathers. The fact remains that the constitution does recognize numerous rights, regardless of race, and those rights are enforced by the courts. Human rights abuses occurr, but the mark of a free society is not that bad things never happen, it is that they become known and the government is held accountable to the people. Courts have handed down many rulings against the administration's practices at Gitmo. Justice has been slow, but will not go lacking.
f you both aren't going to read the article properly
I am responding to the link given. I make no claims to respond to the article no one here was directed to.
And your president is pushing for a federal ban on it. I don't care what some small sections of the population are doing, if your entire power-apparatus is doing something else.
It isn't a small section, and the entire power apparatus isn't doing the same thing. This is incredibly common knowledge. Pick up a damn newspaper. Maybe you'll learn something.
Why else is Creationism/ID taught in some Science classes
Those are not currently part of any public school curriculum.
Why is "faith-based" decision-making considered acceptable
Because we don't biggottedly reject anyone who is religion.
You'll note, however, that I believe you still don't have something as basic as a minimum wage law
I will note that you believe that. $5.15/hour nationally, by the way. Much higher in certain states.
Clearly you have your agenda, so there is no dissuading you.
Do other countries refer to their leader as "Leader of the free WORLD"?
No, but other nations fallaciously heap similar praise on themselves. A fairly meaningless title does not equal fascist-level nationalism, especially as it is based on an ideology of freedom, not upon ethnicity.
umm... watch Nancy Grace on CNN and see her complain about how there are too many civil rights getting in the way of law enforcement and prosecutions.
And watch her continue to complain because she will ultimately be thwarted by the courts.
but you do have THE AXIS OF EVIL (tm).
Bush said that in a State of the Union speech. It was dumb, so he stopped saying it. Blaming all your economic problems on the Jews == scapegoating. Bad speech writer != scapegoating.
what is the difference between a muslim and an islamist?
Simplified slightly: A Muslim is a follower of the religion of Islam. An Islamist is a follower of an extreme ideology which teaches that Islam is the only acceptable form of government.
So... the Department of Homeland Security doesn't basically run EVERYTHING now?
Um. No. Should it? Clumping a bunch of unrelated civilian bureaucracies together in terms of the cabinet structure is a stupid idea, but it isn't big brother.
Homophobia goes both ways? You mean between 'homosexuality is an abomination and gays should be shot' to 'homosexuality is an abomination but gays will get their just punishment when they burn in hell'. The president of WHAT country wants to ammend the constitution to BAN gays settling down?
That is a clear distortion of the debate. Many politicians in BOTH parties are pro-Gay Rights. And assuming he actually cares, the president wants to amend the constitution to prevent the label of "marriage" from being bestowed on gays. Close-minded, yes. But they can still settle down, live together, and raise kids if they do it through private contracts.
The population of WHAT country never elect a female president?
That is regrettable, but not damning. It is naive, however, to think that continuing sex discrimination could be the only cause of inequalities between equally qualified groups. The country has had only a generation to replace its outmoded social structures to provide for greater equality.
How many millions of dollars in fines where handed out for a wardrobe malfunction?
Again. Stupidity != fascism. Wanting to prevent kids from viewing certain material without parental consent is not the same as controlling the media. In a fascist nation the government censors political speech, not nip slips.
I can't turn on the TV and see an american politician give a speech for more than a few minutes about anything without him referring to God.
People are allowed to say whatever they want in their speeches. As the saying goes, "it's a free country."
some protections?
As in sometimes they can't be fired for walking off the job even when someone else wants the job. I call that a pretty good protection. Unless of course you are unemployed, and there is a greedy union, then it is a pretty sucky protection.
What about minimum wages?
Check.
How about limits on the length of the workweek?
Check.
How about laws preventing companies from dictating employee conduct while they are NOT at work.
Depending on the locality: check.
America is light years behind other western nations on protection of labour.
And the only benefit we get from it is the increased ability for workers to get hired and make decent wages. Sucky trade-off, huh?
Schools in the united states are STILL arguing about whether or not to teach creationism in SCIENCE class.
No. Teaching creationism was banned in public schools by the Supreme Court, and some public universities refuse to admit students who have been taught creationism or intelligent design in the
Thus why I said Federal corruption rather than local. In fact Chicago was in the back of my mind as the comparison when I said that Federal corruption was relatively infrequent.
Flags have been steadily vanishing in the public square compared to their post-9/11 prominence. They are also largely without power.
Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
The US Constitution provides expressly for many human rights. Our legal positivism is not dismissal of the value of human rights, only the acknowledgment that in the real world rights exist because governments grant them, not because of their value.
Identification of Enemies
Name me one world power in history that had no enemies. We don't scapegoat everything on terrorists, only what they do. And we make a distinction between Muslims and Islamists.
Supremacy of the Military
Ours is a civilian government. Military service does not grant significant advantage in elections. Many people do not like the military. Military recruitment has fallen. A large budget means that we are in an intractable war, not that we are a military state.
Rampant Sexism
First, opposition to abortion is not sexism. It really isn't. You can be pro-Life and a feminists. Secondly, opposition to abortion isn't that high. A majority think it should be legal, they just don't think it should be legal at all points and in all circumstances. As for homophobia, it goes both ways. Some states have civil unions, others have marriage bans. Many have some special protections in the form of hate crime laws.
Controlled Mass Media
The closest thing we have to state-run media is PBS and NPR. Tell me with a straight face that those are fascist propaganda machines. And before someone shouts Fox News, having one news source tailored to viewers of a particular political persuasion sympathetic to the current administration does not fascism make.
Religion and Government are Intertwined
American secularism, enshrined in the Constitution, specifically disentangles government and religion. Yes, members of the governing party use religious rhetoric, but they are not the majority of the government, and they represent people who genuinely care about it, not people who have been manipulated.
Labor Power is Suppressed
Unions are perfectly legal, and even given some protections. That unions are in trouble in America is due to the decisions made by the particular Unions (AFL-CIO, several of whose member unions left recently) and the pressures of globalization.
Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Last I checked Ward Churchill could say any crazy thing that he thought up and nothing happened to University funding. He certainly wasn't hauled away. The US continues to be one of the top nations for scholarly institutions. As for art, refusing to give away money to artists isn't fascism, it is just a lack of socialism.
Obsession with Crime and Punishment
The police don't have limitless power, most people care about civil liberties, and the courts have repeatedly checked the power of law enforcement. I would certainly like for their to be greater checks on law enforcement, but it is not as if we have a secret police or suspension of habeas corpus.
Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
Federal corruption charges are not overly numerous, and the effects of cronyism are limited and temporary. It is not as if we have no problem with this, but again, not to the level of fascism.
Fraudulent Elections
Our elections are real. Sure they are flawed in ways that only rarely make a difference, such as in Bush v Gore, but those flaws are not systematically designed to benefit the ruling party, they are often due to human laziness and incompetence.
And also keep in mind that Safari gives that annoying "this file contains an application" warning whenever you download an executable, so it would take even more social engineering to actually run any code.
Hell, I'd bet it was a factor in Christ's execution too.
Nah, it's because he was interfering with the plan to institute conservative values in a Mid-East country against the will of its occupiers.;)
On the opposite side of the coin, does that mean that future Mac OS can run on any Intel (and AMD?) machine?
No. The version of OS X on the developer Macs may be compatible with other PCs, but the final product will be tied to an special Intel DRM chip that will prevent it from running on other machines.
The developer machines are loaners and will go back to Apple in two years, and will not continue to be supported.
Tierney is IMO one of the better NYTimes columnists. He usually writes about free market issues. This column was disappointing though, and seemed like so much fluff comparatively.
The last sentence is meant to be read sarcastically. Sarcasm is one form of irony.
The "dumb" comment was also supposed to be in jest.
As this demonstrates quite well, sometimes it is hard to convey humor purely over text. No timing. No inflection. That's why the emoticon -- which I guess I need to use more.
It is an emoticon someone on MacSlash uses. Means ironic. Because you never know when dumb people will fail to notice irony. I guess the icon must not have spread very far.
Screw movies. Where's my iPod Visualizer? iTunes is great and all, but does Apple really expect me to be in view of my computer every time I get stoned? £:-)
It's economics. A huge company could grow the plant more cheaply than an individual consumer could because of economies of scale. Which would you prefer, spending lots of time caring for a plant, or spending a small amount of money? A lot of people value their time enough not to bother growing it.
You can grow all kinds of vegetables in a home garden. But most people will still buy them at the grocery store, often shipped from some other part of the world.
Really, it is the same with pot even now. It is probably safer to grow your own, yet most people still buy from a dealer. And the pot you buy from a dealer is probably grown illegally too. It is just less hassle to buy it than to grow it, and that happens even though there are HUGE mark-ups from all the middle-men taking risks to get the drug to the end-user.
With legalization, a corporation could deliver you the product without all the middle men taking a cut. It could offer you a lower price than now, and still have very large margins. Granted, there would probably be a huge vice tax tacked on, but the price would probably still be lower.
Sure, a big check. But not big enough apparently. Unless you assume that no amount of money would ever have gotten the owners to budge, then they were clearly paid less that it would have otherwise taken. That may be fine for a public work, but this is a private company getting the benefits. If they are really going to be so profitable (and therefore increase the tax base) then what is so wrong with them paying market prices?
And counting an increased tax assessment as in the public good is just one step short of government condoned blackmail. Not making enough on income taxes? Just tell people to start ponying up more, or you'll kick them out for someone who will.
You are right that this isn't a black and white sob story, but that does't mean there isn't a clear line between right and wrong.
f it's not in the Constitution then we have not authorized the federal government to do it. That's what the 10th Amendment says:[emphasis parent's]
Not that simple, actually. The 14th Amendment was long ago interpreted to mean that the Bill of Rights also prevented the States from infringing on those rights. That is why, for instance, the First Amendment protections apply against all levels of government even though it says "Congress shall make no..."
Or you could look at it this way: The conservatives want the rich to own all the businesses and property. The liberals want the government to own all the businesses and property. What neither side realize is that we're so close to the rich, government, and businesses all being the same, why bother fighting?
Hardly. The position of the conservatives on the court (who opposed this decision) is that this clearly opens the way for "the rich to own all the businesses and property" precisely because "we're so close to the rich, government, and businesses all being the same."
To quote from the minority opinion of Sandra Day O'Connor, under the majority ruling:
"Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall or any farm with a factory."
Adding that: "The government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more."
So, in fact, what the conservative judges worry about is exactly the possibility that this will be used to unfairly benefit the rich.
I would say that Neo-Cons are more woried about Empire than protecting it's citizens.
That is the cynical way of thinking about it. I think it not only fails to understand the Neo-Cons, but also fails to appreciate how dangerous they can be.
The Neo-Cons aren't Imperialists, they are idealists. They take the old liberal ideals about spreading Democracy to such an extreme that it blinds them to reality and lets them believe that the ends justify the means.
These are the people who lied to us about why we were going to war because they "knew" it was the "right" thing to do. These are the people who rushed into Iraq unprepared because they believed so strongly in their ideology that they thought we would be welcomed as liberators by all, and we would be out of Iraq in time for dinner.
I know I would prefer Imperialists any day. They would at least have had enough sense of self-preservation never to take us into Iraq in the first place.
Several recent decisions were turned away or dismissed entirely because the person making the challenge did not hold proper standing. They insist that proper procedures and protocol are followed to the letter, and have little patience for those who do otherwise.
I would offer a different interpretation. In the case of the "Under God" suit, I think the court punted because it knew the correct ruling was politically infeasable. The dissenting minority said they should have ruled on the case.
Not to be too much of a contrarian, but you shouldn't make blanket statements about OS stability across diverse machines. Personally, 10.4.1 has been brutal on my machine as far as stability. So far my Uptime Widget has only a 3 day uptime record. Granted my First Gen Quicksilver has taken a lot of abuse over the years, but so have a lot of generic PC boxes, so it is far from a certainty that the pirated copies will be as stable as what runs on a G5.
Slashdot Mirror
By "Capitalism" the poster means "Free Market Capitalism." The two terms are often used interchangably. A free market does not exist in the presence of trusts or monopolies, therefore the existence of cartels is said to be the antithesis of Free Market Capitalism, here shortened to just Capitalism.
I'll have to look up this case, but that is a rather serious issue if it's as simple as you state.
That case involved a New Deal era law designed to create agricultural price supports. I don't think the law is still on the books, but the case made it all the way to the Supreme Court and the law was held constitutional. That precident is important in the court's definition of the Federal Government's powers derived from the Commerce Clause as supplimented by the Necessary and Proper Clause. Recently John Roberts was asked about the case in his confirmation hearings. He refused to comment because it is relevant to cases as recent as Gonzales v. Raich, this year's case in which the court held that the Federal government could take action against users of state-allowed medical marijuana.
So me arguing that my nation has problems but is not fascist based on facts counts as a demonstration of nationalism to the point of fascism?
Founding Fathers ... slaves ... all people .. 200-year-old bit of paper
The constitution is not perfect, nor were the founding fathers. The fact remains that the constitution does recognize numerous rights, regardless of race, and those rights are enforced by the courts. Human rights abuses occurr, but the mark of a free society is not that bad things never happen, it is that they become known and the government is held accountable to the people. Courts have handed down many rulings against the administration's practices at Gitmo. Justice has been slow, but will not go lacking.
f you both aren't going to read the article properly
I am responding to the link given. I make no claims to respond to the article no one here was directed to.
And your president is pushing for a federal ban on it. I don't care what some small sections of the population are doing, if your entire power-apparatus is doing something else.
It isn't a small section, and the entire power apparatus isn't doing the same thing. This is incredibly common knowledge. Pick up a damn newspaper. Maybe you'll learn something.
Why else is Creationism/ID taught in some Science classes
Those are not currently part of any public school curriculum.
Why is "faith-based" decision-making considered acceptable
Because we don't biggottedly reject anyone who is religion.
You'll note, however, that I believe you still don't have something as basic as a minimum wage law
I will note that you believe that. $5.15/hour nationally, by the way. Much higher in certain states. Clearly you have your agenda, so there is no dissuading you.
No, but other nations fallaciously heap similar praise on themselves. A fairly meaningless title does not equal fascist-level nationalism, especially as it is based on an ideology of freedom, not upon ethnicity.
umm... watch Nancy Grace on CNN and see her complain about how there are too many civil rights getting in the way of law enforcement and prosecutions.
And watch her continue to complain because she will ultimately be thwarted by the courts.
but you do have THE AXIS OF EVIL (tm).
Bush said that in a State of the Union speech. It was dumb, so he stopped saying it. Blaming all your economic problems on the Jews == scapegoating. Bad speech writer != scapegoating.
what is the difference between a muslim and an islamist?
Simplified slightly: A Muslim is a follower of the religion of Islam. An Islamist is a follower of an extreme ideology which teaches that Islam is the only acceptable form of government.
So... the Department of Homeland Security doesn't basically run EVERYTHING now?
Um. No. Should it? Clumping a bunch of unrelated civilian bureaucracies together in terms of the cabinet structure is a stupid idea, but it isn't big brother.
Homophobia goes both ways? You mean between 'homosexuality is an abomination and gays should be shot' to 'homosexuality is an abomination but gays will get their just punishment when they burn in hell'. The president of WHAT country wants to ammend the constitution to BAN gays settling down?
That is a clear distortion of the debate. Many politicians in BOTH parties are pro-Gay Rights. And assuming he actually cares, the president wants to amend the constitution to prevent the label of "marriage" from being bestowed on gays. Close-minded, yes. But they can still settle down, live together, and raise kids if they do it through private contracts.
The population of WHAT country never elect a female president?
That is regrettable, but not damning. It is naive, however, to think that continuing sex discrimination could be the only cause of inequalities between equally qualified groups. The country has had only a generation to replace its outmoded social structures to provide for greater equality.
How many millions of dollars in fines where handed out for a wardrobe malfunction?
Again. Stupidity != fascism. Wanting to prevent kids from viewing certain material without parental consent is not the same as controlling the media. In a fascist nation the government censors political speech, not nip slips.
I can't turn on the TV and see an american politician give a speech for more than a few minutes about anything without him referring to God.
People are allowed to say whatever they want in their speeches. As the saying goes, "it's a free country."
some protections?
As in sometimes they can't be fired for walking off the job even when someone else wants the job. I call that a pretty good protection. Unless of course you are unemployed, and there is a greedy union, then it is a pretty sucky protection.
What about minimum wages?
Check.
How about limits on the length of the workweek?
Check.
How about laws preventing companies from dictating employee conduct while they are NOT at work.
Depending on the locality: check.
America is light years behind other western nations on protection of labour.
And the only benefit we get from it is the increased ability for workers to get hired and make decent wages. Sucky trade-off, huh?
Schools in the united states are STILL arguing about whether or not to teach creationism in SCIENCE class.
No. Teaching creationism was banned in public schools by the Supreme Court, and some public universities refuse to admit students who have been taught creationism or intelligent design in the
Thus why I said Federal corruption rather than local. In fact Chicago was in the back of my mind as the comparison when I said that Federal corruption was relatively infrequent.
Flags have been steadily vanishing in the public square compared to their post-9/11 prominence. They are also largely without power.
Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
The US Constitution provides expressly for many human rights. Our legal positivism is not dismissal of the value of human rights, only the acknowledgment that in the real world rights exist because governments grant them, not because of their value.
Identification of Enemies
Name me one world power in history that had no enemies. We don't scapegoat everything on terrorists, only what they do. And we make a distinction between Muslims and Islamists.
Supremacy of the Military
Ours is a civilian government. Military service does not grant significant advantage in elections. Many people do not like the military. Military recruitment has fallen. A large budget means that we are in an intractable war, not that we are a military state.
Rampant Sexism
First, opposition to abortion is not sexism. It really isn't. You can be pro-Life and a feminists. Secondly, opposition to abortion isn't that high. A majority think it should be legal, they just don't think it should be legal at all points and in all circumstances. As for homophobia, it goes both ways. Some states have civil unions, others have marriage bans. Many have some special protections in the form of hate crime laws.
Controlled Mass Media
The closest thing we have to state-run media is PBS and NPR. Tell me with a straight face that those are fascist propaganda machines. And before someone shouts Fox News, having one news source tailored to viewers of a particular political persuasion sympathetic to the current administration does not fascism make.
Religion and Government are Intertwined
American secularism, enshrined in the Constitution, specifically disentangles government and religion. Yes, members of the governing party use religious rhetoric, but they are not the majority of the government, and they represent people who genuinely care about it, not people who have been manipulated.
Labor Power is Suppressed
Unions are perfectly legal, and even given some protections. That unions are in trouble in America is due to the decisions made by the particular Unions (AFL-CIO, several of whose member unions left recently) and the pressures of globalization.
Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Last I checked Ward Churchill could say any crazy thing that he thought up and nothing happened to University funding. He certainly wasn't hauled away. The US continues to be one of the top nations for scholarly institutions. As for art, refusing to give away money to artists isn't fascism, it is just a lack of socialism.
Obsession with Crime and Punishment
The police don't have limitless power, most people care about civil liberties, and the courts have repeatedly checked the power of law enforcement. I would certainly like for their to be greater checks on law enforcement, but it is not as if we have a secret police or suspension of habeas corpus.
Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
Federal corruption charges are not overly numerous, and the effects of cronyism are limited and temporary. It is not as if we have no problem with this, but again, not to the level of fascism.
Fraudulent Elections
Our elections are real. Sure they are flawed in ways that only rarely make a difference, such as in Bush v Gore, but those flaws are not systematically designed to benefit the ruling party, they are often due to human laziness and incompetence.
And also keep in mind that Safari gives that annoying "this file contains an application" warning whenever you download an executable, so it would take even more social engineering to actually run any code.
I guess this means I'll have to scrap my plan of sending Charleton Heston away in a space ship.
We already have something like this. It's called drug patents having an expiration, and it is free.
WWJO: What Would Jesus Orbit?
If by government you mean "judge" and by investigate you mean "rule on a lawsuit" then we are in agreement.
Hell, I'd bet it was a factor in Christ's execution too. Nah, it's because he was interfering with the plan to institute conservative values in a Mid-East country against the will of its occupiers. ;)
How is this new table anything but the old table put into polar coordinates?
(Besides that this way there is enough room to fit the Lanthanides and Actinides in normally)
No. The version of OS X on the developer Macs may be compatible with other PCs, but the final product will be tied to an special Intel DRM chip that will prevent it from running on other machines.
The developer machines are loaners and will go back to Apple in two years, and will not continue to be supported.
Tierney is IMO one of the better NYTimes columnists. He usually writes about free market issues. This column was disappointing though, and seemed like so much fluff comparatively.
The "dumb" comment was also supposed to be in jest.
As this demonstrates quite well, sometimes it is hard to convey humor purely over text. No timing. No inflection. That's why the emoticon -- which I guess I need to use more.
It is an emoticon someone on MacSlash uses. Means ironic. Because you never know when dumb people will fail to notice irony. I guess the icon must not have spread very far.
Screw movies. Where's my iPod Visualizer? iTunes is great and all, but does Apple really expect me to be in view of my computer every time I get stoned? £:-)
You can grow all kinds of vegetables in a home garden. But most people will still buy them at the grocery store, often shipped from some other part of the world.
Really, it is the same with pot even now. It is probably safer to grow your own, yet most people still buy from a dealer. And the pot you buy from a dealer is probably grown illegally too. It is just less hassle to buy it than to grow it, and that happens even though there are HUGE mark-ups from all the middle-men taking risks to get the drug to the end-user.
With legalization, a corporation could deliver you the product without all the middle men taking a cut. It could offer you a lower price than now, and still have very large margins. Granted, there would probably be a huge vice tax tacked on, but the price would probably still be lower.
And counting an increased tax assessment as in the public good is just one step short of government condoned blackmail. Not making enough on income taxes? Just tell people to start ponying up more, or you'll kick them out for someone who will.
You are right that this isn't a black and white sob story, but that does't mean there isn't a clear line between right and wrong.
Not that simple, actually. The 14th Amendment was long ago interpreted to mean that the Bill of Rights also prevented the States from infringing on those rights. That is why, for instance, the First Amendment protections apply against all levels of government even though it says "Congress shall make no..."
Hardly. The position of the conservatives on the court (who opposed this decision) is that this clearly opens the way for "the rich to own all the businesses and property" precisely because "we're so close to the rich, government, and businesses all being the same."
To quote from the minority opinion of Sandra Day O'Connor, under the majority ruling:
"Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall or any farm with a factory."
Adding that: "The government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more."
So, in fact, what the conservative judges worry about is exactly the possibility that this will be used to unfairly benefit the rich.
That is the cynical way of thinking about it. I think it not only fails to understand the Neo-Cons, but also fails to appreciate how dangerous they can be.
The Neo-Cons aren't Imperialists, they are idealists. They take the old liberal ideals about spreading Democracy to such an extreme that it blinds them to reality and lets them believe that the ends justify the means.
These are the people who lied to us about why we were going to war because they "knew" it was the "right" thing to do. These are the people who rushed into Iraq unprepared because they believed so strongly in their ideology that they thought we would be welcomed as liberators by all, and we would be out of Iraq in time for dinner.
I know I would prefer Imperialists any day. They would at least have had enough sense of self-preservation never to take us into Iraq in the first place.
I would offer a different interpretation. In the case of the "Under God" suit, I think the court punted because it knew the correct ruling was politically infeasable. The dissenting minority said they should have ruled on the case.
Not to be too much of a contrarian, but you shouldn't make blanket statements about OS stability across diverse machines. Personally, 10.4.1 has been brutal on my machine as far as stability. So far my Uptime Widget has only a 3 day uptime record. Granted my First Gen Quicksilver has taken a lot of abuse over the years, but so have a lot of generic PC boxes, so it is far from a certainty that the pirated copies will be as stable as what runs on a G5.