"As to the matter of women voting, have you forgotten that women received the vote via a Constitutional Amendment?"
You missed my point here. I was saying the following:
1: The authors of the constitution believed the phrase "All men are created equal" excluded women and non-land-owning men, as well as blacks.
2: A significant number of the authors of the consitution either supported or in fact owned slaves.
3: The parent post was claiming that the text of the consitution must be taken only in the context of the authoring of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights.
My conclusion, then, is that either the parent must endorse slavery, the subjugation of women and the primacy of property in having political voice, or they must concede that the Constitution is an evolving document, which occurs both through amendments (which include granting the vote to women and minorities) and through cultural shift (which includes the granting of the vote to non-landowners).
Sorry, thats my sig. The word "druid" is what its referring to. A pagan term which includes several variants of a nature-based religion and philosophy held by the Celts from the 3-4th century BCE until the 2nd or third century CE at least until the Christian onslaught via the Roman Empire, Druidism is a philosophy which centers on the unity of all things in all forms.
Maybe I should put some dashes at the top of the sig to differentiate, though its never been an issue before.
The reason, in general, that the loser doesn't automatically have to pay legal fees is this: there is a certain "burden of proof" which lawyers must demonstrate to win their case. Now, in a criminal case this is very clear: you must prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that the accused is guilty (or for the defendent, you must merely demonstrate some reasonable doubt). In a civil case, howoever (which is what we're talking about here), you have a far more complex system for determining the victor. Most typically, these are not Jury cases, but are instead determined by a single judge. The burden of proof is shifted, in general, to merely the opinion of the judge. In other words, you could not prove the case, but merely convince the Judge of it.
Also, the gross majority of civil suits are not completed in court. Again, from consultation with my friends and family who are lawyers in the feild, the consensus is that something on the order of 90% of civil cases are settled after a certain amount of hours has been billed on both sides, but with neither side conceding. Thats what happened here: both sides employed lawyers (whom billed their clients a certain fee), and despite neither side admitting their loss or claiming a victory, the lawyers must still be paid. Should this kid be able to demand those fees? He didn't win.
Even in the event of victory, you may have won on a technicality, or despite any number of things which convince the Judge that you're still guilty in some way, if not in the particular context here.
The constitution is written in plain, clear English from the 18th century. For a significant number of 21st century Americans, that language is not plain or clear.
Moreover, it is most definately not clear how the rules established in the Constitution (such as the Elastic Clause which permits congress all powers that it may "reasonably" claim) interface with contemporary laws. The ALI - the American Law Institute - is composed of several hundred of the top lawyers and judges in the country. It spends much of the year, including two large conferences a yeare, interpretting the new laws and court decisions in an effort to compile them into coherent and easily understood guidelines for other lawyers and judges. If you were correct, and the Constitution was "plain" and "clear" even today, then there wouldn't be a need for the ALI at all. There wouldn't be a need for lawyers or judges or The Supreme Court at all, since everyone would understand the laws.
You're mistaken about the clarity of the constitution. Want a simple example? The word "militia" has a notably different definition today than two hundred years ago, and as a result it is unclear as to how the 2nd amendment extends towards "modern" uses of the word "militia". Similarly, it is unclear how the Constitution can claim seperation of Church and State but then employ a Church-concept like "God" in its very text.
Grow up a bit: the world, and all things in it, are complex. The Constitution is nothing unique, in that regard: it is a complex and difficult peice of brilliant lawmaking, and it requires the perpetual efforts of scholars to understand how to apply it today.
On a side note, consider this: if you're so happy to take the text of the Constitution/Bill of Rights perfectly literally, why aren't you happy to take all the laws of the day? Especially, the laws written/supported by those very authors of the Constitution? What about the laws against Sodomy? And the restriction against Women voters which is implied by the literal use of "All MEN are created equal"? Or perhaps the historical fact that those authors didn't believe men who lacked private land should be able to vote under that Constitution they proudly authored? The fact remains that the Constitution and all its text, including the Amendments, must be interpreted in an appropriate context in order to allow the growth of our country.
Just to remind everyone: when this was a new story (weeks ago, in the first weeks of may) it was calculated that his tuition for the semester was something on the order of $20,000. This is pretty standard for a decent school. Now, consider this: in order for him to go through the court proceedings, he would have missed his finals, thus losing him all the money he spent on that semester.
That would necessitate counter-suing, then, to recoup that $20,000, plus legal fees.
So in the end, if he wanted to fight this, he would have needed to not only argue for his innocence, but also that the RIAA was sufficiently innapropriate in suing him that they were responsible for both his legal fees (which could exceed several thousand dollars, most likely) and also his lost $20,000 from school. Conferring with a few friends who are lawyers in this field, the consensus is that to get the legal fees at least, he'd have to demonstrate far more than his innocence, but also the RIAA's foreknowledge of his innocence most likely. As for the lost $20,000, he'd have to demonstrate both the foreknowledge of his innocence, as well as an intentional effort to time their lawsuit to cause him those damages. Thats not locked in stone - different judges can apply the rules differently.
Basically, my point is that this kid lost $12,000 this way. If he had fought it, he'd have lost $20,000 at least, plus legal fees, plus potentially losing tens of thousands of dollars if he lost the court case. Worse, he could face academic punishments for failing a full courseload (that would depend on his school).
Now, I'm not saying this is fair, since I dont necessarily agree with the RIAA intentionally targetting individuals who cannot afford to fight back, but I'm just trying to make it clear to everyone here why this kid did what he did.
What this means is that while the RIAA understood what they were permitting, Jesse's father didn't.
What the RIAA said was basically this: we dont care WHAT you say, because at the end of the day you paid us $12,000 to stop taking you to court; if you think you didn't do anything, we dont give a flying fu...
This is actually quite standard in out-of-court settlements. Both sides are usually free to some regard to talk about the case, so long as the check clears. In fact, he's fortunate that they gave him complete freedom to talk, since that degree of freedom is somewhat rare.
Interestingly, you misunderstood MY point. I dont believe in a strict or absolute understanding of the constitution. I believe in liberal interpretation based on the needs of society at that time, within the limits of the language.
I was using the fact that many scholars disagree (claiming only a precise, literal interpretation) to refute the PARENT's claim that while the 2nd amendment must be taken literally, the rest of the constitution must be taken liberally so as to include privacy.
Moreover, as I recently reminded someone in another post, if there simply is no such thing as a "right to privacy" beyond a fiction, then the 9th amendment cannot connote such a right.
The result of this is not that the lack of a right to privacy gives the federal government power to enter what we would call privacy, but instead that the prevention of such powers has nothing to do with privacy itself but rather the limitations of the specific powers deliniated for the government.
So you misunderstood the part where I directly stated that several Supreme Court justices have stated clearly that the 9th amendment doesn't necessarily include a "right to privacy", since it may not in actuality be any "right" in a meaningful sense beyond fiction?
For the record, no legal scholar or philosopher would accept your claim that the Bill of Rights (or ANY legal document) is "absolute and timeless".
A clear example, which is of prime relevance, is the fact that the Constitution and Bill of Rights never once use the word "privacy". In fact, there is no attempt to explicitly proscribe a right to privacy, nor a right against government explorations of the individual. In fact, the argument over whether or not the makers of the constitution intended there to be such a right is one of the oldest in American legal debate.
Without getting too detailed, consider the following: all of the arguments for a constitutional right to privacy are based on liberal interpretations of the Bill of Rights, for example the belief that in order for their to BE a right to free speech, there must be sufficient privacy to organize that free speech without social pressure (either from private citizenry or from the government) preventing that speech. Another example is the belief that the right against illegal housing of soldiers in your home implies that your house is somehow "private" despite that it is clearly located within the domain of the government.
Court decisions are, of course, divided about this. Griswold v. Connecticut includes Justice Stewart's dissenting claim that there simply is no right to privacy, but merely the specific rights in the Bill of Rights. He employed this, incidentally, in an argument against protection of abortion. Roe v. Wade, infamously, determines that there is a right to privacy, insofar as a woman's private control of her womb.
In a more contemporary context, laws discussing the legality of sexual behaviors clearly are concerned with the privacy of your home. A certain possible presidential candidate (whom I wont name) made claims that homosexual behavior, if legal, must demand that all sexual behavior done in "privacy" must be legal by paralleling it to bestiality and the ilk. His point, clearly, is that there simply is no right to privacy, insofar as your consentual sexual behavior at home.
To sum up, the right to privacy you're so concerned about isn't explicitly stated in the Constitution or Bill of Rights, despite your request that we only read them literally and without interpretation. Basically, to take a little pun, you've shot yourself in the foot.
To be fair though, how many notes do you really take in a small seminar or discussion course? I personally used my laptop only for notes in lectures; I've never felt the need to take anything but small notes in discussion/seminar, and so a single sheet of paper almost always suffices for comments such as "Hume said this on p.20" or "Change comment on racism" or whatever.
At both universities I've studied at (U.Sydney in AU and Georgetown in the US) they've encouraged the use of laptops in the classroom both explicitly (by programs to reduce the cost of laptops for students) and implicitly (by the introduction of wi-fi throughout the classrooms at Gtown).
Moreover, the professors I've used a laptop with have all not cared because of my standing in class. Frankly, if I had a professor who was anything other than polite about it, I cant imagine I'd want his class. If your thoughts are so easily distracted that laptop keys throw you off, you might want to work on that little deficiency. Personally I cant imagine that the sound of keys is any worse that the already-present noise of people adjusting in seats, pens and pencils scratching on paper, paper tearing, pages flipping, etc.
There are several explanations given in the comics:
Earlier comics explained his adhesion abilities based on a sort of static cling, i.e. that his body projected a static electric feild around his skin that extended a few inches in either direction, and when he focused he could control it. This was, of course, because people didn't know how spiders clung to walls at the time, so it was a BS explanation. To put it in context, remember that they gave Spider Man an ESP "Spider sense" despite the fact that its clear that spiders have no ability to psychically predict the future.
Later (80s-90s) comics seemed to suggest that he had microfiliments protruding from his skin, much like this gecko tape or the movie, but never made a big deal about it.
More interestingly, the early comics of the new millenium included an extensive storyline that indicated that the spider-powers were actually magical. There was a whole storyline wherein it seems that Peter is the latest in a LONG line of spider-powered avatars.
Alternately, consider the general explanation for super-powers in Marvel: humanity contains an X-Gene, because of the manipulations of the Celestials. Certain events, especially radiation, activate it. With mutants, the radiation in utero causes the mutation; with people like Spider Man, Captain America or The Fantastic Four, radiation encountered during life did it. The mutation, though, is connected to the psychological states of people, i.e. conscious minds around the activation of the X-Gene somehow influence its "powers". This is a nice explanation of why Peter gains the "spider sense" despite it having NO analogue in real spiders: his understanding of spiders suggested that they had ESP, so his powers unconsciously developed including that ability.
I say the definitive Gollum (and, for that matter, the definitive Treebeard) is that done by J.R.R. Tolkien in his recorded interviews, wherein he voiced many stretches of dialogue by many characters.
To clarify, he speaks in "periodic syntax", which is the same as the context of classical latin. Several other languages (including the earliest post-latin forms of Spanish/Italian/French).
Modern english, interestingly, maintains this in a form: a "periodic sentence" is one with its main clause at the end, following all subordinate clauses and other elements. This is an echo of the older periodic sentence, revised to technically fit into the syntax rules of modern english (which inverts the verb order).
No. The reason is simpler than it seems. In the US, currently, there is no federal law making it illegal to have an abortion; quite the contrary, current federal law [i.e. the Supreme Court decisions] explicitly permit abortion.
Now, what this means is that it cannot be a federal crime to transmit information on how to find a legal abortion clinic. Basically, think about it this way: you cannot be committing a crime to explain how to perform a legally sanctioned activity.
If you're in Canada and you do something that is entirely legal in Canada while illegal in the US, then the US cant touch you.
If you're in the US, you do that illegal thing, and then run over to Canada, you're still screwed since the Canadian police will happily arrest you and extradite you (so long as its not a capital offense) to the US.
Now here's the tricky part: if you're in Canada but somehow commit the crime in the US (such as committing mail fraud or telephone fraud, which are Federal offenses since they employ infrastructure and cross state lines), you can be easily extradited from Canada just as in the previous case.
So the question is this: does the ability to access the website in the US mean that, in fact, the Canadian website perpetuated the crime in the US? Before you say a quick 'no', be aware of the recent decision by the German courts that eBay.com, despite being an American company, is subject to German law (hence the removal of their nazi paraphanelia). Now, if the US determines similarly, its quite likely that Canada will support them, considering the relationship our two countries have.
No, it means that the new features will be implemented the same way Windows Update does it for integrated aspects of the OS now: it will be downloaded and installed onto the system. What this means is that you will not be able to JUST get IE, but instead only get it through Windows.
So, when do we all just sit down and admit that our phones have acqured way too many useless features. I'm sorry, but who needs a calorie counter in their phone? All the atheletes I know who use such a device wouldn't want a low-end one like this; they'd use the higher-end systems like Polar makes. Ditto with the FM radio: beyond the question of who actually listens to the radio beyond their desk, car or gym, who would want to burn their phone battery doing this? It all seems pretty nuts...
However, thanks to the use of the website by Americans in America, that may be a moot point. There are many debates going on about this not only in courts themselves but also in the legal discussions by organizations such as the American Law Institute (which produces the guides to US law employed by lawyers around the country to stay updated on changes in law and judicial decisions), not to mention academica et al.
I'm just not sure why this should be any worse then speeding on the freeway
There's a long-standing (i.e. since time immemorial) debate about what the purpose of punishment is, which essentially boils down to this: is it retribution (i.e. revenge), prevention or is it rehabilitiation?
Now, without going into the unnecessary portions, think about this: lets focus just on these two crimes of speeding and intercepting the signal. Both are perceived as acceptable by a signficant population (as evidenced by the countless people who do both without thinking of themselves as "criminals"). In particular, look at speeders who [as you say] are constantly endangering both their lives and the lives of others. Those same people, tohugh, are not too likely to go out and do soemthing more malicious or more overtly about endangering lives (i.e. killing the power to a hospital, or something). It has to do with how they perceive their actions. Now, how do we keep people from doing this? One option is to make punishments "scale" to the crime, i.e. a small fine for a small crime, based on the damages perhaps. Another, though, is to make the punishment scale to the occurance of the crime, that is the most common crimes carry the worst punishments. People usually advocate this when thinking about how the death penalty doesn't deter murders, while known speed traps do deter speeding. Basically, if we made it so speeding was a 5-year jail sentence, those "causual criminals" wouldn't do it, most likely.
What I'm getting at is this: perhaps this intercepting of private signals is no worse than speeding on the freeway, but perhaps both should be significantly more risky, in terms of punishment incurred if you're caught.
Personally, I'm excited about this simply for the opportunity to have an emperical means for assisting people in meditation, in their own homes. This could open up whole groups of individuals for meditation and the related philosophy or theology with which they want to associate it.
That said, I'd be particularly excited if the system could somehow be made extensible, i.e. that using a front-end software they provide you associate certain activities with normal system commands. In such a system, for example, you could perhaps script an interface to react to your GSR to control any game.
Alternately, I'd hope that they have a simple front end so that an end-user could write a program to read the same information from the sensors. This would allow us to basically create parallel games or simply meditative tools without the "storyline" or particular format of their game.
Hey, I didn't say cops will always pull you over, merely that they could pull you over. Remember that cops have to show up at the hearing for every ticket they issue; if your plate is only partially or accidentally obscured, they may often believe that you'll just get the ticket dismissed in court. Because of this, they will often/usually not show up [at least according to my cop friend in D.C.], so as a result this sort of ticket is rarely issued.
The tinted type you're referring to, incidentally, is designed to prevent camera's from photographing the plate (if this is the same product as I'm thinking of). Basically, by having the screen polarized in a particular fashion, it eliminates the ability to see the plate from the perspective of the typical street-sign camera. These, in Florida [my home state], are explicitly declared illegal, although its ironic since they dont actually prevent the cameras from working.
I'd throw my vote in support of these cameras; then again, I dont believe in a legal right to privacy except insofar as is necessary to prevent abuse. That said, I beleive the only way to prevent governmental abuse is to simultaneously give the government the power, as we create observer systems to oversee their activity. Basically, implement both the check and the balance at the same time.
I don't know about the UK, but in the USA its illegal to have your plate obscured for any reason, and is a ticketable offense. Moreover, its mandatory that a police officer run your plates/license whenever they ticket you, so if you get pulled over for having obscured your plate then you're just as screwed as if they knew it was you from the beginning.
More subtle? In "A Modest Proposal", he literally advocated the killing and eating, en masse of the children of the poor in the UK (of which there was a massive population explosion/crisis), so as to demonstrate how cruel the Parliament was being in its ignoring of the poor's complaints. He presented it on the floor of Parliament, to a full house. Doesn't sound very subtle to me.
Additionally, the better question to ask is this: today, free speech lets someone choose their forum for political dissent. Therefor, when someone like Moore chooses the notably easier format (easier both in terms of how its written, and how easily the public may access it), you have to ask why. I, frankly, would suggest that it generally means that they dont believe they could succeed in the more difficult forum.
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"As to the matter of women voting, have you forgotten that women received the vote via a Constitutional Amendment?"
You missed my point here. I was saying the following:
1: The authors of the constitution believed the phrase "All men are created equal" excluded women and non-land-owning men, as well as blacks.
2: A significant number of the authors of the consitution either supported or in fact owned slaves.
3: The parent post was claiming that the text of the consitution must be taken only in the context of the authoring of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights.
My conclusion, then, is that either the parent must endorse slavery, the subjugation of women and the primacy of property in having political voice, or they must concede that the Constitution is an evolving document, which occurs both through amendments (which include granting the vote to women and minorities) and through cultural shift (which includes the granting of the vote to non-landowners).
Sorry, thats my sig. The word "druid" is what its referring to. A pagan term which includes several variants of a nature-based religion and philosophy held by the Celts from the 3-4th century BCE until the 2nd or third century CE at least until the Christian onslaught via the Roman Empire, Druidism is a philosophy which centers on the unity of all things in all forms.
Maybe I should put some dashes at the top of the sig to differentiate, though its never been an issue before.
The reason, in general, that the loser doesn't automatically have to pay legal fees is this: there is a certain "burden of proof" which lawyers must demonstrate to win their case. Now, in a criminal case this is very clear: you must prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that the accused is guilty (or for the defendent, you must merely demonstrate some reasonable doubt). In a civil case, howoever (which is what we're talking about here), you have a far more complex system for determining the victor. Most typically, these are not Jury cases, but are instead determined by a single judge. The burden of proof is shifted, in general, to merely the opinion of the judge. In other words, you could not prove the case, but merely convince the Judge of it.
Also, the gross majority of civil suits are not completed in court. Again, from consultation with my friends and family who are lawyers in the feild, the consensus is that something on the order of 90% of civil cases are settled after a certain amount of hours has been billed on both sides, but with neither side conceding. Thats what happened here: both sides employed lawyers (whom billed their clients a certain fee), and despite neither side admitting their loss or claiming a victory, the lawyers must still be paid. Should this kid be able to demand those fees? He didn't win.
Even in the event of victory, you may have won on a technicality, or despite any number of things which convince the Judge that you're still guilty in some way, if not in the particular context here.
The constitution is written in plain, clear English from the 18th century. For a significant number of 21st century Americans, that language is not plain or clear.
Moreover, it is most definately not clear how the rules established in the Constitution (such as the Elastic Clause which permits congress all powers that it may "reasonably" claim) interface with contemporary laws. The ALI - the American Law Institute - is composed of several hundred of the top lawyers and judges in the country. It spends much of the year, including two large conferences a yeare, interpretting the new laws and court decisions in an effort to compile them into coherent and easily understood guidelines for other lawyers and judges. If you were correct, and the Constitution was "plain" and "clear" even today, then there wouldn't be a need for the ALI at all. There wouldn't be a need for lawyers or judges or The Supreme Court at all, since everyone would understand the laws.
You're mistaken about the clarity of the constitution. Want a simple example? The word "militia" has a notably different definition today than two hundred years ago, and as a result it is unclear as to how the 2nd amendment extends towards "modern" uses of the word "militia". Similarly, it is unclear how the Constitution can claim seperation of Church and State but then employ a Church-concept like "God" in its very text.
Grow up a bit: the world, and all things in it, are complex. The Constitution is nothing unique, in that regard: it is a complex and difficult peice of brilliant lawmaking, and it requires the perpetual efforts of scholars to understand how to apply it today.
On a side note, consider this: if you're so happy to take the text of the Constitution/Bill of Rights perfectly literally, why aren't you happy to take all the laws of the day? Especially, the laws written/supported by those very authors of the Constitution? What about the laws against Sodomy? And the restriction against Women voters which is implied by the literal use of "All MEN are created equal"? Or perhaps the historical fact that those authors didn't believe men who lacked private land should be able to vote under that Constitution they proudly authored? The fact remains that the Constitution and all its text, including the Amendments, must be interpreted in an appropriate context in order to allow the growth of our country.
Just to remind everyone: when this was a new story (weeks ago, in the first weeks of may) it was calculated that his tuition for the semester was something on the order of $20,000. This is pretty standard for a decent school. Now, consider this: in order for him to go through the court proceedings, he would have missed his finals, thus losing him all the money he spent on that semester.
That would necessitate counter-suing, then, to recoup that $20,000, plus legal fees.
So in the end, if he wanted to fight this, he would have needed to not only argue for his innocence, but also that the RIAA was sufficiently innapropriate in suing him that they were responsible for both his legal fees (which could exceed several thousand dollars, most likely) and also his lost $20,000 from school. Conferring with a few friends who are lawyers in this field, the consensus is that to get the legal fees at least, he'd have to demonstrate far more than his innocence, but also the RIAA's foreknowledge of his innocence most likely. As for the lost $20,000, he'd have to demonstrate both the foreknowledge of his innocence, as well as an intentional effort to time their lawsuit to cause him those damages. Thats not locked in stone - different judges can apply the rules differently.
Basically, my point is that this kid lost $12,000 this way. If he had fought it, he'd have lost $20,000 at least, plus legal fees, plus potentially losing tens of thousands of dollars if he lost the court case. Worse, he could face academic punishments for failing a full courseload (that would depend on his school).
Now, I'm not saying this is fair, since I dont necessarily agree with the RIAA intentionally targetting individuals who cannot afford to fight back, but I'm just trying to make it clear to everyone here why this kid did what he did.
What this means is that while the RIAA understood what they were permitting, Jesse's father didn't.
What the RIAA said was basically this: we dont care WHAT you say, because at the end of the day you paid us $12,000 to stop taking you to court; if you think you didn't do anything, we dont give a flying fu...
This is actually quite standard in out-of-court settlements. Both sides are usually free to some regard to talk about the case, so long as the check clears. In fact, he's fortunate that they gave him complete freedom to talk, since that degree of freedom is somewhat rare.
Interestingly, you misunderstood MY point. I dont believe in a strict or absolute understanding of the constitution. I believe in liberal interpretation based on the needs of society at that time, within the limits of the language.
I was using the fact that many scholars disagree (claiming only a precise, literal interpretation) to refute the PARENT's claim that while the 2nd amendment must be taken literally, the rest of the constitution must be taken liberally so as to include privacy.
Moreover, as I recently reminded someone in another post, if there simply is no such thing as a "right to privacy" beyond a fiction, then the 9th amendment cannot connote such a right.
The result of this is not that the lack of a right to privacy gives the federal government power to enter what we would call privacy, but instead that the prevention of such powers has nothing to do with privacy itself but rather the limitations of the specific powers deliniated for the government.
So you misunderstood the part where I directly stated that several Supreme Court justices have stated clearly that the 9th amendment doesn't necessarily include a "right to privacy", since it may not in actuality be any "right" in a meaningful sense beyond fiction?
For the record, no legal scholar or philosopher would accept your claim that the Bill of Rights (or ANY legal document) is "absolute and timeless".
A clear example, which is of prime relevance, is the fact that the Constitution and Bill of Rights never once use the word "privacy". In fact, there is no attempt to explicitly proscribe a right to privacy, nor a right against government explorations of the individual. In fact, the argument over whether or not the makers of the constitution intended there to be such a right is one of the oldest in American legal debate.
Without getting too detailed, consider the following: all of the arguments for a constitutional right to privacy are based on liberal interpretations of the Bill of Rights, for example the belief that in order for their to BE a right to free speech, there must be sufficient privacy to organize that free speech without social pressure (either from private citizenry or from the government) preventing that speech. Another example is the belief that the right against illegal housing of soldiers in your home implies that your house is somehow "private" despite that it is clearly located within the domain of the government.
Court decisions are, of course, divided about this. Griswold v. Connecticut includes Justice Stewart's dissenting claim that there simply is no right to privacy, but merely the specific rights in the Bill of Rights. He employed this, incidentally, in an argument against protection of abortion. Roe v. Wade, infamously, determines that there is a right to privacy, insofar as a woman's private control of her womb.
In a more contemporary context, laws discussing the legality of sexual behaviors clearly are concerned with the privacy of your home. A certain possible presidential candidate (whom I wont name) made claims that homosexual behavior, if legal, must demand that all sexual behavior done in "privacy" must be legal by paralleling it to bestiality and the ilk. His point, clearly, is that there simply is no right to privacy, insofar as your consentual sexual behavior at home.
To sum up, the right to privacy you're so concerned about isn't explicitly stated in the Constitution or Bill of Rights, despite your request that we only read them literally and without interpretation. Basically, to take a little pun, you've shot yourself in the foot.
To be fair though, how many notes do you really take in a small seminar or discussion course? I personally used my laptop only for notes in lectures; I've never felt the need to take anything but small notes in discussion/seminar, and so a single sheet of paper almost always suffices for comments such as "Hume said this on p.20" or "Change comment on racism" or whatever.
At both universities I've studied at (U.Sydney in AU and Georgetown in the US) they've encouraged the use of laptops in the classroom both explicitly (by programs to reduce the cost of laptops for students) and implicitly (by the introduction of wi-fi throughout the classrooms at Gtown).
Moreover, the professors I've used a laptop with have all not cared because of my standing in class. Frankly, if I had a professor who was anything other than polite about it, I cant imagine I'd want his class. If your thoughts are so easily distracted that laptop keys throw you off, you might want to work on that little deficiency. Personally I cant imagine that the sound of keys is any worse that the already-present noise of people adjusting in seats, pens and pencils scratching on paper, paper tearing, pages flipping, etc.
There are several explanations given in the comics:
Earlier comics explained his adhesion abilities based on a sort of static cling, i.e. that his body projected a static electric feild around his skin that extended a few inches in either direction, and when he focused he could control it. This was, of course, because people didn't know how spiders clung to walls at the time, so it was a BS explanation. To put it in context, remember that they gave Spider Man an ESP "Spider sense" despite the fact that its clear that spiders have no ability to psychically predict the future.
Later (80s-90s) comics seemed to suggest that he had microfiliments protruding from his skin, much like this gecko tape or the movie, but never made a big deal about it.
More interestingly, the early comics of the new millenium included an extensive storyline that indicated that the spider-powers were actually magical. There was a whole storyline wherein it seems that Peter is the latest in a LONG line of spider-powered avatars.
Alternately, consider the general explanation for super-powers in Marvel: humanity contains an X-Gene, because of the manipulations of the Celestials. Certain events, especially radiation, activate it. With mutants, the radiation in utero causes the mutation; with people like Spider Man, Captain America or The Fantastic Four, radiation encountered during life did it. The mutation, though, is connected to the psychological states of people, i.e. conscious minds around the activation of the X-Gene somehow influence its "powers". This is a nice explanation of why Peter gains the "spider sense" despite it having NO analogue in real spiders: his understanding of spiders suggested that they had ESP, so his powers unconsciously developed including that ability.
I say the definitive Gollum (and, for that matter, the definitive Treebeard) is that done by J.R.R. Tolkien in his recorded interviews, wherein he voiced many stretches of dialogue by many characters.
To clarify, he speaks in "periodic syntax", which is the same as the context of classical latin. Several other languages (including the earliest post-latin forms of Spanish/Italian/French).
Modern english, interestingly, maintains this in a form: a "periodic sentence" is one with its main clause at the end, following all subordinate clauses and other elements. This is an echo of the older periodic sentence, revised to technically fit into the syntax rules of modern english (which inverts the verb order).
Dont worry; no one takes anything about Godfather 3 seriously. Only the first two are any good, although number two is simply brilliant.
No. The reason is simpler than it seems. In the US, currently, there is no federal law making it illegal to have an abortion; quite the contrary, current federal law [i.e. the Supreme Court decisions] explicitly permit abortion.
Now, what this means is that it cannot be a federal crime to transmit information on how to find a legal abortion clinic. Basically, think about it this way: you cannot be committing a crime to explain how to perform a legally sanctioned activity.
It depends.
If you're in Canada and you do something that is entirely legal in Canada while illegal in the US, then the US cant touch you.
If you're in the US, you do that illegal thing, and then run over to Canada, you're still screwed since the Canadian police will happily arrest you and extradite you (so long as its not a capital offense) to the US.
Now here's the tricky part: if you're in Canada but somehow commit the crime in the US (such as committing mail fraud or telephone fraud, which are Federal offenses since they employ infrastructure and cross state lines), you can be easily extradited from Canada just as in the previous case.
So the question is this: does the ability to access the website in the US mean that, in fact, the Canadian website perpetuated the crime in the US? Before you say a quick 'no', be aware of the recent decision by the German courts that eBay.com, despite being an American company, is subject to German law (hence the removal of their nazi paraphanelia). Now, if the US determines similarly, its quite likely that Canada will support them, considering the relationship our two countries have.
No, it means that the new features will be implemented the same way Windows Update does it for integrated aspects of the OS now: it will be downloaded and installed onto the system. What this means is that you will not be able to JUST get IE, but instead only get it through Windows.
So, when do we all just sit down and admit that our phones have acqured way too many useless features. I'm sorry, but who needs a calorie counter in their phone? All the atheletes I know who use such a device wouldn't want a low-end one like this; they'd use the higher-end systems like Polar makes. Ditto with the FM radio: beyond the question of who actually listens to the radio beyond their desk, car or gym, who would want to burn their phone battery doing this? It all seems pretty nuts...
However, thanks to the use of the website by Americans in America, that may be a moot point. There are many debates going on about this not only in courts themselves but also in the legal discussions by organizations such as the American Law Institute (which produces the guides to US law employed by lawyers around the country to stay updated on changes in law and judicial decisions), not to mention academica et al.
I'm just not sure why this should be any worse then speeding on the freeway
There's a long-standing (i.e. since time immemorial) debate about what the purpose of punishment is, which essentially boils down to this: is it retribution (i.e. revenge), prevention or is it rehabilitiation?
Now, without going into the unnecessary portions, think about this: lets focus just on these two crimes of speeding and intercepting the signal. Both are perceived as acceptable by a signficant population (as evidenced by the countless people who do both without thinking of themselves as "criminals"). In particular, look at speeders who [as you say] are constantly endangering both their lives and the lives of others. Those same people, tohugh, are not too likely to go out and do soemthing more malicious or more overtly about endangering lives (i.e. killing the power to a hospital, or something). It has to do with how they perceive their actions. Now, how do we keep people from doing this? One option is to make punishments "scale" to the crime, i.e. a small fine for a small crime, based on the damages perhaps. Another, though, is to make the punishment scale to the occurance of the crime, that is the most common crimes carry the worst punishments. People usually advocate this when thinking about how the death penalty doesn't deter murders, while known speed traps do deter speeding. Basically, if we made it so speeding was a 5-year jail sentence, those "causual criminals" wouldn't do it, most likely.
What I'm getting at is this: perhaps this intercepting of private signals is no worse than speeding on the freeway, but perhaps both should be significantly more risky, in terms of punishment incurred if you're caught.
Personally, I'm excited about this simply for the opportunity to have an emperical means for assisting people in meditation, in their own homes. This could open up whole groups of individuals for meditation and the related philosophy or theology with which they want to associate it.
That said, I'd be particularly excited if the system could somehow be made extensible, i.e. that using a front-end software they provide you associate certain activities with normal system commands. In such a system, for example, you could perhaps script an interface to react to your GSR to control any game.
Alternately, I'd hope that they have a simple front end so that an end-user could write a program to read the same information from the sensors. This would allow us to basically create parallel games or simply meditative tools without the "storyline" or particular format of their game.
Hey, I didn't say cops will always pull you over, merely that they could pull you over. Remember that cops have to show up at the hearing for every ticket they issue; if your plate is only partially or accidentally obscured, they may often believe that you'll just get the ticket dismissed in court. Because of this, they will often/usually not show up [at least according to my cop friend in D.C.], so as a result this sort of ticket is rarely issued.
The tinted type you're referring to, incidentally, is designed to prevent camera's from photographing the plate (if this is the same product as I'm thinking of). Basically, by having the screen polarized in a particular fashion, it eliminates the ability to see the plate from the perspective of the typical street-sign camera. These, in Florida [my home state], are explicitly declared illegal, although its ironic since they dont actually prevent the cameras from working.
I'd throw my vote in support of these cameras; then again, I dont believe in a legal right to privacy except insofar as is necessary to prevent abuse. That said, I beleive the only way to prevent governmental abuse is to simultaneously give the government the power, as we create observer systems to oversee their activity. Basically, implement both the check and the balance at the same time.
I don't know about the UK, but in the USA its illegal to have your plate obscured for any reason, and is a ticketable offense. Moreover, its mandatory that a police officer run your plates/license whenever they ticket you, so if you get pulled over for having obscured your plate then you're just as screwed as if they knew it was you from the beginning.
More subtle? In "A Modest Proposal", he literally advocated the killing and eating, en masse of the children of the poor in the UK (of which there was a massive population explosion/crisis), so as to demonstrate how cruel the Parliament was being in its ignoring of the poor's complaints. He presented it on the floor of Parliament, to a full house. Doesn't sound very subtle to me.
Additionally, the better question to ask is this: today, free speech lets someone choose their forum for political dissent. Therefor, when someone like Moore chooses the notably easier format (easier both in terms of how its written, and how easily the public may access it), you have to ask why. I, frankly, would suggest that it generally means that they dont believe they could succeed in the more difficult forum.