Where, exactly, do you pull the figure of $50 per person? Are you counting federal or state? Students or the entire population?
Also, where is it established that a 35-hr. work schedule makes for greater productivity? In my industry, I'm expecting to be working an average of 50-hrs.
They revised the law for SIX MONTHS. They're going to come back to it to give it a better review.
Only a SMALL NUMBER of democrats voted for it. Most Republicans did.
Could Slashdot be more melodramatic?
So now we're applying our laws and customs to everyone in the world? Well, good thing we've got the justification for invading other countries down pat.
You seriously think that because one is "lawful" they can't be "evil"? Eh, my dork score just shot up...
In any case, you're completely off the ball. Even assuming the laws and the government were 100% legitimate, individuals and companies are responsible for the abuses of the system. If one company is doing something reprehensible, even within the law, they MUST be vilified for it. That's generally the only way that there's recourse against them, as the laws (and the awareness of the general populace) doesn't change quickly.
Now, if you don't think RIAA's methods of protecting its interests aren't reprehensible, that's a matter you can debate. But I would say you should examine their history...
Heaven forbid we expect that discussing solutions for our problems in Iraq, with immigration, health care, and so on might take more than one minute. Those really complex issues might even take a whole ten minutes! Good thing we have the media to ensure our attention span remains short and we focus on those soundbites which take 10 seconds.
Do voters really need to know whether I got drunk at some keggers in college? Whether I joined any gay personals? There's a lot of information that is nobody's business, employers or voters.
This bill does not ban states from disallowing electronic voting machines, it sets minimum standards for how they are be used if states decide to use electronic machines.
Get your facts straight before working against GOOD legislation.
Among the Democrats, whose the most well-known? Hillary, Obama, and Edwards. The media has celebrity stories built around Hillary and Obama, while Edwards still has some prestige from the last election. The media does a poll, finds, guess what, those three are the most well-known and thus the most liked. From there on they focus on those three, occasionally taking more polls and finding, guess what, their coverage of the top three hasn't resulted in anyone else from moving up.
There's no cabal directing the media; that might be a simpler problem to solve. But at every step of the media process there are editors, managers, and producers (sorry, don't know actual job titles) who are making decision about what deserves the most attention along with what will attract the most viewership, and they have motives other than making us smarter more well-informed people. The problems with the media is its emphasis on rumor and stories over facts and reality, it's willingness to fill every second with "news" at the expense of accuracy and real journalism, and it's desires to give viewers "what they want" instead of what they need. Most of this breaks down to a limitation of time and space to treat matters with the depth they should be treated, and the fact that they're ultimately aiming to make a profit. Whereas the BBC, a government funded organization, has long been espoused as a stellar news organization (though it suffers from flaws as well).
Is Fred Thompson really Ronald Reagon reincarnated?
Is Barack Obama really the first determined idealist bent on making our country better?
Does Paris Hilton really need six major news outlets stalking her everywhere?
If your answer to any of those is 'yes', ask yourself why, and then ask yourself if the media has explained their reasons why.
I'm sorry, but measuring media bias based on the Americans for Democratic Action doesn't prove anything substantive about media bias. It is quite possible for a liberal organization to LOVE a particular news network because it is the most receptive to their viewpoints, but if that reception is "balanced" then it's still not bias. Furthermore, even if particular correspondents say they preferred Kerry to Bush, their opinions are fairly irrelevant in light of the media luminaries such as Brian Williams. Some of the other studies they cite are likewise ridiculous. According to the James Hamilton study (2004) mentioned, because conservatives speak out about more liberal bias than liberals speak out against conservative bias, there's a liberal bias? Or... conservatives simply complain more about perceived bias. The article calls this observation of bias "astute", while taking light that media bias wasn't the subject of the Hamilton study. Is this a sign of bias in the article?
Most of the media's bias against liberals is subtle, but persistent. It is more evident as personal attacks or ignoring certain issues, and most of the time liberals don't object too loudly or effectively, striking at the reliability of studies like this. Check out the Daily Howler. They're definitely a liberal group, and I don't agree with all their sentiments, but it's hard to deny the stuff they point out.
All the resources that goes into staffing airports, keeping planes boarded and ready to take off, and otherwise managing all the problems that come from delays eats up its own chunk of energy too.
Are you kidding me? As if either party is going to go on the campaign trail proclaiming "We brought you better internet!". You'd just rather whine and moan about Congress than care about whether they're actually taking care of the issues. I intend on thanking members of this committee for their work.
Insightful my ass.
Cause it makes ever so much sense for him to slap major fundraisers in the face during an election over an issue only a small fraction of the population cares about and an even smaller fraction who are willing to put money where their mouths are. I'm sorry, there are a few more important issues in America than copyright reform right now, and I see no reason to weaken Democratic candidates over it.
Cause lords know nerds are the only one's on the internet, and nerds are the only ones who get bullied. We all know every single child can filter their email and phone, has the ability to censor vicious rumors and insults passing amongst their peers, and every has the extreme force of will to completely disregard the society around them and be completely self-sufficient. Naturally, teaching our children to respond with more violence and hatred is the most noblest of lessons, and doesn't lead to any social problems in life.
It's not like some children are being isolated until they commit suicide or go on killing sprees.
No, let's just leave them to sort it out on their own.
Where does it lead? Communism. Really, according to my reading, Marx believed that capitalism would push for advances in technology until scarcity was a thing of the past and there was no longer a need for a class society.
Of course, some crazy people thought that Russia of all places was ready to be a land of abundance and gave it all a bad name...
In a perfect world, where the free market operated as the theory would have it work. But if the majority of big companies are blocking/tolling traffic, who are customers going to go to?
And of course, as has been stated numerous times, people don't understand the issue to begin with. I'll be the first to admit I don't grasp the sea of telecom/ISP regulations, as much as I might want to.
Do you really believe the government doesn't have ways of cracking common encryption techniques if it wants to?
Regardless, as has already been pointed out, this is nothing different than regular phones being tapped. If you want to moan about attacks on the constitution, point your fingers at Bush's *illegal* wiretapping and not the FCC.
A happy coincidence, assuming one doesn't agree with other posts here arguing that companies just need to be smarter about outsourcing. Sometimes free markets results we like, sometimes they produce results we don't (or consider unethical).
That with your dozens of examples you're just proving the point that Linux is not friendly enough for the average computer user? I'm tech savvy but have no experience with Linux. I recently installed Fedora, but I don't know what half the things mentioned in the posts above are or how to use them. I'm still trying to figure out why I can only get the most recent version of firefox I downloaded to run from the commandline and not the desktop, let alone how to "install" it. Yes, that's sounds pretty sad, and I'm sure I'll figure it out given the time to sit down and mess with it. But lord knows my mother and her friends wouldn't know what to do, it's taken them years to get use to Windows.
A perfectly reasonable argument. But its quite simply unrealistic. Despite whatever theory of rights we have concerning our own identity, there's really not much we can do to prevent all the companies in the world tracking us for all sorts of commercial endeavors. Likewise, when every cell phone is a camera we cannot keep pictures of ourselves off the internet, let alone works of art.
Putting that aside, you have to ask yourself whether this right you suggest really applies to the copyright holder or the true creator. When a select few corporations own the majority of music, do we extend to them this same tolerance of excentricity? Do they really deserve artistic control when they've put in no artistic effort? Our society says that ideas and techniques can be bought and sold as a general rule (while finding ways around when it when it suits us), but does that mean so can the respect, loyalty, and consideration that comes with those ideas?
And of course, one could go on and on about whether any person truly owns an idea, and whether or not it belongs to society itself...
Slashdot Mirror
Where, exactly, do you pull the figure of $50 per person? Are you counting federal or state? Students or the entire population? Also, where is it established that a 35-hr. work schedule makes for greater productivity? In my industry, I'm expecting to be working an average of 50-hrs.
They revised the law for SIX MONTHS. They're going to come back to it to give it a better review. Only a SMALL NUMBER of democrats voted for it. Most Republicans did. Could Slashdot be more melodramatic?
So now we're applying our laws and customs to everyone in the world? Well, good thing we've got the justification for invading other countries down pat.
You seriously think that because one is "lawful" they can't be "evil"? Eh, my dork score just shot up... In any case, you're completely off the ball. Even assuming the laws and the government were 100% legitimate, individuals and companies are responsible for the abuses of the system. If one company is doing something reprehensible, even within the law, they MUST be vilified for it. That's generally the only way that there's recourse against them, as the laws (and the awareness of the general populace) doesn't change quickly. Now, if you don't think RIAA's methods of protecting its interests aren't reprehensible, that's a matter you can debate. But I would say you should examine their history...
"The sarcasm detector is going off the charts!" "Oh, a sarcasm detector, that's a *real* useful device." *BOOM*
Heaven forbid we expect that discussing solutions for our problems in Iraq, with immigration, health care, and so on might take more than one minute. Those really complex issues might even take a whole ten minutes! Good thing we have the media to ensure our attention span remains short and we focus on those soundbites which take 10 seconds.
Do voters really need to know whether I got drunk at some keggers in college? Whether I joined any gay personals? There's a lot of information that is nobody's business, employers or voters.
This bill does not ban states from disallowing electronic voting machines, it sets minimum standards for how they are be used if states decide to use electronic machines. Get your facts straight before working against GOOD legislation.
There's no cabal directing the media; that might be a simpler problem to solve. But at every step of the media process there are editors, managers, and producers (sorry, don't know actual job titles) who are making decision about what deserves the most attention along with what will attract the most viewership, and they have motives other than making us smarter more well-informed people. The problems with the media is its emphasis on rumor and stories over facts and reality, it's willingness to fill every second with "news" at the expense of accuracy and real journalism, and it's desires to give viewers "what they want" instead of what they need. Most of this breaks down to a limitation of time and space to treat matters with the depth they should be treated, and the fact that they're ultimately aiming to make a profit. Whereas the BBC, a government funded organization, has long been espoused as a stellar news organization (though it suffers from flaws as well).
Is Fred Thompson really Ronald Reagon reincarnated?
Is Barack Obama really the first determined idealist bent on making our country better?
Does Paris Hilton really need six major news outlets stalking her everywhere?
If your answer to any of those is 'yes', ask yourself why, and then ask yourself if the media has explained their reasons why.
I'm sorry, but measuring media bias based on the Americans for Democratic Action doesn't prove anything substantive about media bias. It is quite possible for a liberal organization to LOVE a particular news network because it is the most receptive to their viewpoints, but if that reception is "balanced" then it's still not bias. Furthermore, even if particular correspondents say they preferred Kerry to Bush, their opinions are fairly irrelevant in light of the media luminaries such as Brian Williams. Some of the other studies they cite are likewise ridiculous. According to the James Hamilton study (2004) mentioned, because conservatives speak out about more liberal bias than liberals speak out against conservative bias, there's a liberal bias? Or... conservatives simply complain more about perceived bias. The article calls this observation of bias "astute", while taking light that media bias wasn't the subject of the Hamilton study. Is this a sign of bias in the article?
Most of the media's bias against liberals is subtle, but persistent. It is more evident as personal attacks or ignoring certain issues, and most of the time liberals don't object too loudly or effectively, striking at the reliability of studies like this. Check out the Daily Howler. They're definitely a liberal group, and I don't agree with all their sentiments, but it's hard to deny the stuff they point out.
All the resources that goes into staffing airports, keeping planes boarded and ready to take off, and otherwise managing all the problems that come from delays eats up its own chunk of energy too.
Are you kidding me? As if either party is going to go on the campaign trail proclaiming "We brought you better internet!". You'd just rather whine and moan about Congress than care about whether they're actually taking care of the issues. I intend on thanking members of this committee for their work. Insightful my ass.
Cause it makes ever so much sense for him to slap major fundraisers in the face during an election over an issue only a small fraction of the population cares about and an even smaller fraction who are willing to put money where their mouths are. I'm sorry, there are a few more important issues in America than copyright reform right now, and I see no reason to weaken Democratic candidates over it.
Cause lords know nerds are the only one's on the internet, and nerds are the only ones who get bullied. We all know every single child can filter their email and phone, has the ability to censor vicious rumors and insults passing amongst their peers, and every has the extreme force of will to completely disregard the society around them and be completely self-sufficient. Naturally, teaching our children to respond with more violence and hatred is the most noblest of lessons, and doesn't lead to any social problems in life. It's not like some children are being isolated until they commit suicide or go on killing sprees. No, let's just leave them to sort it out on their own.
Where does it lead? Communism. Really, according to my reading, Marx believed that capitalism would push for advances in technology until scarcity was a thing of the past and there was no longer a need for a class society.
Of course, some crazy people thought that Russia of all places was ready to be a land of abundance and gave it all a bad name...
In a perfect world, where the free market operated as the theory would have it work. But if the majority of big companies are blocking/tolling traffic, who are customers going to go to? And of course, as has been stated numerous times, people don't understand the issue to begin with. I'll be the first to admit I don't grasp the sea of telecom/ISP regulations, as much as I might want to.
Do you really believe the government doesn't have ways of cracking common encryption techniques if it wants to? Regardless, as has already been pointed out, this is nothing different than regular phones being tapped. If you want to moan about attacks on the constitution, point your fingers at Bush's *illegal* wiretapping and not the FCC.
A happy coincidence, assuming one doesn't agree with other posts here arguing that companies just need to be smarter about outsourcing. Sometimes free markets results we like, sometimes they produce results we don't (or consider unethical).
*rolls d6 to determine today's oil prices*
That with your dozens of examples you're just proving the point that Linux is not friendly enough for the average computer user? I'm tech savvy but have no experience with Linux. I recently installed Fedora, but I don't know what half the things mentioned in the posts above are or how to use them. I'm still trying to figure out why I can only get the most recent version of firefox I downloaded to run from the commandline and not the desktop, let alone how to "install" it. Yes, that's sounds pretty sad, and I'm sure I'll figure it out given the time to sit down and mess with it. But lord knows my mother and her friends wouldn't know what to do, it's taken them years to get use to Windows.
A perfectly reasonable argument. But its quite simply unrealistic. Despite whatever theory of rights we have concerning our own identity, there's really not much we can do to prevent all the companies in the world tracking us for all sorts of commercial endeavors. Likewise, when every cell phone is a camera we cannot keep pictures of ourselves off the internet, let alone works of art. Putting that aside, you have to ask yourself whether this right you suggest really applies to the copyright holder or the true creator. When a select few corporations own the majority of music, do we extend to them this same tolerance of excentricity? Do they really deserve artistic control when they've put in no artistic effort? Our society says that ideas and techniques can be bought and sold as a general rule (while finding ways around when it when it suits us), but does that mean so can the respect, loyalty, and consideration that comes with those ideas? And of course, one could go on and on about whether any person truly owns an idea, and whether or not it belongs to society itself...