5000 years ago you could wander off to unoccupied land and start growing things. Or you could try your hand and hunting and gathering. You could live off the land.
Ever been in a National Forest? While setting up permanent structures/dwellings is illegal (assuming they can find you in those thousands of acres), it is perfectly OK to wander about this public property, setting up tents or lean-tos, or cave-hopping, living off the land. Just like you want to, right? Or was that a bluff?
I did it myself for 18 months before going to college. Sometimes hooking up with the Rainbows (see link above), sometimes on my own or with friends, sometimes with wierdos I met in the forest. I met dozens of people who live totally off-the-grid, in the wilderness, on their own. It absolutely can be done, but it's tough, and you need to be as clueful about living in wilderness as people were 5000 years ago (at least the ones that survived), and you need to be ready work hard, live rough, and die much earlier (around 50 or so, if you're lucky). My guess is anyone clueful enough to survive on their own in the wilderness would consider it pansy-ass easy to survive in modern society. Do you know how much a good panhandler can make in a night?
In fact, that's so much harder to do than leeching off of society that very few people do it, but still some do. Remember Kasczinski?
Please, stop your whiny bullshit. If you don't want to play society's game, don't. Get the hell out of town and look at all that amazingly huge unoccupied, un-developed land that you could live on for generations without running into anyone else. I assume you're in America (though other places such as Australia and Africa are even easier, since homesteading is still available and it's legal to build permanent structures in thier national parks).
Just because your life is easy doesn't mean everyone's is. Ever known anyone trying to get by, working two minimum-wage jobs to try and pay the rent and feed the kids? I'm sure they find life so easy.
Boo-fucking-hoo. Yes, myself. Get over it whiner. It can be done. I suggest you start by logging off of slashdot, turning off the computer, and getting to work. If you meant someone besides you, you are welcome to pay extra taxes and/or support some charity to help out as much as you like. Just don't try to force everyone else to do even more than they do.
So, you believe that as long as everyone has the opportunity to go for the jobs, you'd be fine if there were only jobs for half the population, forcing the rest to go without shelter, food, etc?
Yes. Of course, that's a fallacious argument, since there's more than enough to go around for half of everyone (probably for all of everyone, if everyone would get off their asses and do something worthwhile), but I don't mind being falsely penned-in to an answer. Again: yes, that's fine. No one has the right to live off of everyone else. While we're using silly hypothetical arguments, let me turn the tables: what if there were only enough for 10% of everyone? Should we all starve, or let the weakest die off?
Everyone deserves a job because currently, in our society, that's really the only way to get by.
No, I don't think that is true. You don't have a right to get by. What makes you think you have such a right? From where does the right come? And I think it's good that most people don't think that way, or we'd all be so lax that our only skill would be holding our our begging hand. You call for Bread & Circuses, and I say the need to eat and get shelter is an excellent motivator (and herd-thinner). We have very different ideologies, clearly.
Yes, there are some safety nets, but there is also a sizeable effort by people to eliminate those safety nets, claiming such nets allow people to leech off society without working.
Whether or not some people would like to limit, reduce, or change these safety nets (by, say, finding a way to give out a dollar to help someone in need without incurring a 70 cent overhead in the bureaucracy along the way) does not change the fact that the nets are there and growing in size. Free food, free shelter, free job training, free school. What do you want -- even more than 50%+ of my income?
It'd be quicker and more straightforward to just go around and shoot people if that route's going to be taken.
This is totally fallacious and, well, stupid. I suggest that whatever job-finding prpblems you may have more likely stem from a tendency to utter drivel such as this than any kind of problem with society or available opportunities. I'm sorry, but this is a complete non-sequitur, designed to play on the emotions, and it makes you sound ridiculous.
It is most disingenuous to claim all is well if everyone has opportunities, when there are fewer opportunities available than people wanting to take advantage of them.
No, what's disingenuous is your false assumption that there are fewer opportunities available than people wanting to take advantage of them. Opportunities can be created by the individual; they're not handed down from god. They're not some finite resource. A little ingenuity, a lot of work -- voila -- a new opportunity to make a living.
Being one of the ones left out of the opportunities isn't like losing a game of musical chairs. The penalty could be your life.
No, it's nothing like musical chairs. Musical chairs is random -- there's no way to influence the result without paying off the DJ. Your precious fatalism notwitstanding, you do have some influence in your own success.
I think we're going to have to agree to diagree here, since you're clearly die-hard socialist and I'm not.
Good for you -- I wholeheartedly agree that small local charities are a good thing, because the hand-outs from such institutions can be properly targeted and metered. There's much less chance for abuse of the system if you're getting real help from someone or some org that is aware of what you're doing to help yourself (or not). Local charities can actually see (and care) if the person getting help is blowing it on booze and drugs or not (and, in these cases, give them food and medical help instead of more money).
But, this great system you describe has been largely replaced by government-run welfare systems that we can't opt-out of. These inefficient, impersonal entitlement programs don't have the ability (or desire) to manage the money properly (it costs 70 cents on average to give away one dollar via the US welfare system) and thus they are much more susceptible to abuse. Welfare doesn't help as much as it perpetuates the situation.
Now, note that more than 50% of my income goes to taxes, and a nice chunk of that is earmarked for these irresponsible, counter-productive, and oftentimes corrupt programs. Then wonder why I'm less likely (and able!) to help out locally.
Yet you'll hear just about every political candidate promise to "create more jobs" as if they are widgets that can be mass-manufactured in greater quantity if the gubmint would just turn up that job-making machine's dial to "11".
And so many people will cry "the government needs to create more jobs!". Or criticize one politician or another for not creating enough jobs.
I don't get it, and it kind of irks me when I hear such nonsense.
No one deserves a job, or a living wage, or anything other than the opportunity to make any of the above for themselves. No one even deserves happiness IMHO -- just the right to pursue it.
Here's a great, on-topic article from the Cato institute that addresses the unemployment issue, and has some great commentary regarding the cluelessness of both Repubnocrats and Demolicans in this respect.
Considering the event's proximity to Cernobyl, I think the extra radiation and toxic chemicals would barely be noticeable above the background radiation. But you do have a point. I'm doubting they were following and sort of green prodecures when busting CRTs and capacitors all over the ground.
But, please be careful not to refer to this Ukranian event as a "joke",
especially on NYC subways.
I hope you're being properly supportive in this, her time of need. If I may offer a little advice: tell her not to give up, keep trying, apply herself, and one day she just might be the town whore. If not, reassure here that 2nd place isn't so bad.
Hmm, I've never heard Canada described as so, well, Japanese. I'm not trolling or kidding, this is true. An excellent comparison I've heard many times that seems to parallel your statement is:
In America, The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease.
In Japan, The Nail That Stands Up Gets Hammered Down.
Old Oklahoma state motto (as seen on license plates): Oklahoma is OK! Get it? OK is the state abbreviation, but everyone knows it really meant Oklahoma isn't all that great -- just OK. So they changed it to spoil all the jokes . . .
New Oklahoma state motto (as seen on license plates): The Sooner State Because, of course, you'd sooner be anywhere else, and the sooner you get out of OK the more OK you'll actually feel.
I don't diagree with your sentiment or conclusion, but I'm afraid you erred here:
Party A is free to rifle through party B's personal property in order to find guilt, and party B is left with no defense.
I don't think anyone could reasonably argue that querying a world-readable, publicly-shared directory or hard drive in your computer is akin to "[rifling] through... personal property".
Again, I agree that their tactics are wrong at best and illegal at worst, but only because of the end-run around the normal subpoena process, not because they gather evidence from your freely and intentionally shared personal property.
So, if the previously posted assertions about the harms of fluoride are true, why don't residents of Portland exhibit lower rates of supidity, cancer, docility, senility, malleability, etc.? And don't try to tell me they do -- I've been there.
Don't worry, my lawyers will keep you in check. DeciJob/DJ(TM) is already trademarked and patented as a concept (how you ask? I just coded it into some software, and you know the rest . . . ).
Funny as hell, really. BTW, how many BagdadBobs are in a DeciJob? I think we now must inform them all that they are too far from reality. Or set them up the bomb. Or something:)
First, that set us up comment is truly funny for the first time in years. Second, please let me say that this is as cool as it is unexpected. And, to save you all the not-so-funny funny stuff, I will preemptively steal all the predictable bad jokes right now:
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these . . .
In Soviet Russia, OS comes with hard-drive built-in!
I, for one, welcome our new OS-bearing hard drive overlords . . .
I wonder what the SCO licensing fees are for one of these?
My TiVO is better, much better. Wholly unrelated, but better.
It's a dupe! A dupe I say!
Everyone knows Lindows is dead.
We haven't seen this sooner because Microsoft has been keeping it down. Damn monopolists.
I'm withg the GLAA (Gay Lindows Association of America) and let me tell you . . .
And, since the grandparent mentioned David St. Hubbins: on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is horrific, cottage-cheese-filled-balloon-ass fat, I have to say that the pics at that link go to eleven .
Where have you been? Would you care to substantiate any of that allegedly "Insightful" drivel? My pre-emptive strike follows, please enjoy this list of limitations which increase in severity with chronology:
316 U.S. 52 (1942). See also Breard v. City of Alexandria, 341 U.S. 622 (1951). The doctrine was one of the bases upon which the banning of all commercials for cigarettes from radio and television was upheld. Capital Broadcasting Co. v. Mitchell, 333 F. Supp. 582 (D.D.C. 1971) (three-judge court), aff'd per curiam, 405 U.S. 1000 (1972).
Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Comm'n on Human Relations, 413 U.S. 376 (1973).
Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U.S. 809 (1975).
Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748 (1976). Justice Rehnquist dissented. Id. at 781.
Linmark Ass'n v. Township of Willingboro, 431 U.S. 85 (1977).
Commercial speech is viewed by the Court as usually hardier than other speech; because advertising is the sine qua non of commercial profits, it is less likely to be chilled by regulation. Thus, the difference inheres in both the nature of the speech and the nature of the governmental interest. Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748, 771-72 n.24 (1976); Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Ass'n, 436 U.S. 447, 455-56 (1978). It is, of course, important to develop distinctions between commercial speech and other speech for purposes of determining when broader regulation is permissible. The Court's definitional statements have been general, referring to commercial speech as that ``proposing a commercial transaction,'' Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Ass'n, supra, or as ``expression related solely to the economic interests of the speaker and its audience.'' Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Comm'n, 447 U.S. 557, 561 (1980). It has simply viewed as noncommercial the advertising of views on public policy that would inhere to the economic benefit of the speaker. Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Comm'n, 447 U.S. 530 (1980). So too, the Court has refused to treat as commercial speech charitable solicitation undertaken by professional fundraisers, characterizing the commercial component as ``inextricably intertwined with otherwise fully protected speech.'' Riley v. National Fed'n of the Blind, 487 U.S. 781, 796 (1988). By contrast, a mixing of home economics information with a sales pitch at a ``Tupperware'' party did not remove the transaction from commercial speech. Board of Trustees v. Fox, 492 U.S. 469 (1989).
Peel v. Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Comm'n, 496 U.S. 91 (1990).
And, may personal fave, from Contrived Distinctions: The Doctrine of Commercial Speech in First Amendment Jurisprudence by Jonathan W. Emord, from which the following elucidating quote is taken:
Indeed, the Court's commercial speech jurisprudence is a striking anomaly in First Amendment law, for -- with the exception of obscenity and fighting words -- no other speech content is so disfavored by the Court. Despite its willingness to single out business and economic communication for disfavored treatment, the Court has never articulated a principled reason why discrimination against commercial speech content is consistent with freedom of speech.
From 1942 until 1976 the Supreme Court denied speech it categorized as purely commercial any constitutional protection. In 1976 the Court changed direction by holding that the simple advertisement "I will sell you X prescription drug at Y price" was protected by the First Amendment. The Court insisted, however, that there remained "commonsense differences between speech that does 'no more than propose a commercial transaction' . . . and other varieties." Since 1976 the Court has abandoned its decision to afford commercial speech greater First Amendment protection. It has elected to give such speech almost no protection and held, as it did in 1942, that the content of speech that proposes a commercial transaction, even when intertwined with speech about noncommercial concerns, is regulable.
Thanks -- you were submitting while I was previewing my own reply, I guess, but I appreciate the added point about National Do Not Call lists as an example of gummint regulation of commericial speech.
I also didn't think of the practicality angle on the b2b "spam" argument It's definitely not spam, as you indicate, and no judge or jury would ding you for sending one (1) email to the purchasing agent of Widgetcorp who already buys a similar product -- the $1k isn't worth the hassle. In fact, a $1k fine for 100 or so good b2b leads (assuming 99% of purchasing agents would not press charges on you for sedning a single email and subsequently honoring and requests to not email them again which, BTW, is what I consider to be minimally decent business practices,) On the other hand, 1e7 x $1k ($10 million) for the herbal viagra spam that everyone and their grandma gets is a juicy low-hanging fruit under this new law. Good for CA. Sometimes their "leadership" isn't all bad.;)
Know what? Thank You. You're right; I checked. Worse, I've misused that once already before now, in a context in which I wish I hadn't. I'm serious. Grammar nazis don't scare me -- I enjoy learning. Seriously, thank you. I won't make that mistake again.
For example, if you are a business owner producing widget A, and, while searching the web you find a company that buys A widgets to make B widgets, you proceed to look up their contact information, introduce yourself, and request someone get back to you if they are interested - this whole scenario is now illegal.
Right. And? So the spammer has to resort to traditional comtact methods (such as snail mail, which the spammer him or herself must pay for, or a telephone call to the receptionist, which may or may not provide authorization to talk to or email the desired party.) What's the problem with the ways that have worked well for so long? Just because email addresses are easy to harvest and cheap to shotgun-spam doesn't mean spammers have a right to use them that way.
Roughly 90% of my snail mail box is junk mail. Yet I don't see any politicians jumping on bills like these that would outlaw sending bulk or individual "commercial" letters.
The snail mail costs the sender money. Spam costs you money (directly or indirectly in the form of higher ISP fees). Moreover, the Direct Mail Assoc. tends to honor requests to cease sending junk mail. The local businesses may still snail-spam you, but remember that you can always cost them even more money by stuffing their own brochures back into their own business reply envelopes and mailing them back to them. On thier dime (or $0.37, in this case.)
Commercial speech has never been, nor should it ever be free.
Yeah, but this has been significantly eroding for several decades. At this point there are very few restrictions unique to commercial speech.
You'll forgive my US-centricity here since the law in question is a California law, but the only law that really counts IMHO (the Constitution) provides protection for free speech, not commercial speech. That's plenty erosion-resistant to me.
I suspect that ["do not call lists" not applying to non-profits] has nothing to do with the issue of commercial speech per se. The list is promulgated by the FTC. They're not empowered to regulate persons not engaged in trade.
Er, that's the point. No org such as the FTC could, without constitutional amendment, exist and monitor or control non-commerical speech, but the FTC can and does restrict commerical speech. Q.E.D.
The bill would instead prohibit a person or entity located in California from initiating or advertising in unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisements.
So:
1. Not commercial. Flame away in private.
2. The "spoofs" would need to include some commercial message or invitation to buy a product. If that spoof doesn't include a commercial offer, case closed. If it does include a commercial offer, it would be rather easy to show whether or not a business relationship exists between the acutal sender and the commercial entity on whose behalf the email was (allegedly) sent or spoofed (i.e. compensation was exchanged or not). In short: cuo bono (who profits?).
3. Commerical endeavors have always suffered more restrictions than non-commercial ones. This does not jeapordize that clear line in any way, shape, or form. Witness the anti-telemarketing Do Not Call registries that apply to commercial interests but not non-profits or politicians. There is no slippery slope here, please move along.
Oh, and kindly bite my minorly-irritated shiny metal ass;)
Good points on GameSly's nonsense. I've been ignoring them since that Joost asshole tried to trick me into giving him my (valueable) domain name.
But, regarding bf1942 -- I don't get your point. The interface for bf1942, not unlike its amazing engine that can generate those wonderful huge landscapes with 64 players scrambling all about and dozens of vehicles (of all kinds), grounbreaking, awesome, yet relatively immature. In fact, it's the same console-based interface from Quake1. To kick a player, you open the console and type 'kick N' where N is the player number from the scoreboard. Initiating or affirmative voting is the same command. It's pretty simple to me, but then again I used to write console scripts in quake games.
Point is, the user-interface for the below-average player will come in time, but to me the implementation that really counts is the engine, which bf1942 does amazingly well. Just like we had to wait for a rather late patch to Q1, Q2, and Half-Life to get a decent voting interface for the idiots (GUI pops up with "Kick d00d? F1=YES F2=NO"), forthcoming patches and/or mods to the bf1942 engine will make the voting interface dumb enough for even the n00best of n00bs to use. But, even then, is this really sufficient reason to call the interface to the whole game "HORRIBLE" (assuming you didn't just mean the kickvote interface)?
So, to answer your question, I guess I am here to say that the "interface to BF1942 isn't HORRIBLE." It could me made simpler, sure (can't everything?), but personally that would get in my way -- I don't want something popping up to impede my view at the wrong moment. I'm fully capable of reading the docs that say "press ~ to open the console. type 'kick N'. hit enter". What's so "HORRIBLE" about that?
Slashdot Mirror
5000 years ago you could wander off to unoccupied land and start growing things. Or you could try your hand and hunting and gathering. You could live off the land.
You still can.
Ever been in a National Forest? While setting up permanent structures/dwellings is illegal (assuming they can find you in those thousands of acres), it is perfectly OK to wander about this public property, setting up tents or lean-tos, or cave-hopping, living off the land. Just like you want to, right? Or was that a bluff?
I did it myself for 18 months before going to college. Sometimes hooking up with the Rainbows (see link above), sometimes on my own or with friends, sometimes with wierdos I met in the forest. I met dozens of people who live totally off-the-grid, in the wilderness, on their own. It absolutely can be done, but it's tough, and you need to be as clueful about living in wilderness as people were 5000 years ago (at least the ones that survived), and you need to be ready work hard, live rough, and die much earlier (around 50 or so, if you're lucky). My guess is anyone clueful enough to survive on their own in the wilderness would consider it pansy-ass easy to survive in modern society. Do you know how much a good panhandler can make in a night?
In fact, that's so much harder to do than leeching off of society that very few people do it, but still some do. Remember Kasczinski?
Please, stop your whiny bullshit. If you don't want to play society's game, don't. Get the hell out of town and look at all that amazingly huge unoccupied, un-developed land that you could live on for generations without running into anyone else. I assume you're in America (though other places such as Australia and Africa are even easier, since homesteading is still available and it's legal to build permanent structures in thier national parks).
Just because your life is easy doesn't mean everyone's is. Ever known anyone trying to get by, working two minimum-wage jobs to try and pay the rent and feed the kids? I'm sure they find life so easy.
Boo-fucking-hoo. Yes, myself. Get over it whiner. It can be done. I suggest you start by logging off of slashdot, turning off the computer, and getting to work. If you meant someone besides you, you are welcome to pay extra taxes and/or support some charity to help out as much as you like. Just don't try to force everyone else to do even more than they do.
So, you believe that as long as everyone has the opportunity to go for the jobs, you'd be fine if there were only jobs for half the population, forcing the rest to go without shelter, food, etc?
Yes. Of course, that's a fallacious argument, since there's more than enough to go around for half of everyone (probably for all of everyone, if everyone would get off their asses and do something worthwhile), but I don't mind being falsely penned-in to an answer. Again: yes, that's fine. No one has the right to live off of everyone else. While we're using silly hypothetical arguments, let me turn the tables: what if there were only enough for 10% of everyone? Should we all starve, or let the weakest die off?
Everyone deserves a job because currently, in our society, that's really the only way to get by.
No, I don't think that is true. You don't have a right to get by. What makes you think you have such a right? From where does the right come? And I think it's good that most people don't think that way, or we'd all be so lax that our only skill would be holding our our begging hand. You call for Bread & Circuses, and I say the need to eat and get shelter is an excellent motivator (and herd-thinner). We have very different ideologies, clearly.
Yes, there are some safety nets, but there is also a sizeable effort by people to eliminate those safety nets, claiming such nets allow people to leech off society without working.
Whether or not some people would like to limit, reduce, or change these safety nets (by, say, finding a way to give out a dollar to help someone in need without incurring a 70 cent overhead in the bureaucracy along the way) does not change the fact that the nets are there and growing in size. Free food, free shelter, free job training, free school. What do you want -- even more than 50%+ of my income?
It'd be quicker and more straightforward to just go around and shoot people if that route's going to be taken.
This is totally fallacious and, well, stupid. I suggest that whatever job-finding prpblems you may have more likely stem from a tendency to utter drivel such as this than any kind of problem with society or available opportunities. I'm sorry, but this is a complete non-sequitur, designed to play on the emotions, and it makes you sound ridiculous.
It is most disingenuous to claim all is well if everyone has opportunities, when there are fewer opportunities available than people wanting to take advantage of them.
No, what's disingenuous is your false assumption that there are fewer opportunities available than people wanting to take advantage of them. Opportunities can be created by the individual; they're not handed down from god. They're not some finite resource. A little ingenuity, a lot of work -- voila -- a new opportunity to make a living.
Being one of the ones left out of the opportunities isn't like losing a game of musical chairs. The penalty could be your life.
No, it's nothing like musical chairs. Musical chairs is random -- there's no way to influence the result without paying off the DJ. Your precious fatalism notwitstanding, you do have some influence in your own success.
I think we're going to have to agree to diagree here, since you're clearly die-hard socialist and I'm not.
Good for you -- I wholeheartedly agree that small local charities are a good thing, because the hand-outs from such institutions can be properly targeted and metered. There's much less chance for abuse of the system if you're getting real help from someone or some org that is aware of what you're doing to help yourself (or not). Local charities can actually see (and care) if the person getting help is blowing it on booze and drugs or not (and, in these cases, give them food and medical help instead of more money).
But, this great system you describe has been largely replaced by government-run welfare systems that we can't opt-out of. These inefficient, impersonal entitlement programs don't have the ability (or desire) to manage the money properly (it costs 70 cents on average to give away one dollar via the US welfare system) and thus they are much more susceptible to abuse. Welfare doesn't help as much as it perpetuates the situation.
Now, note that more than 50% of my income goes to taxes, and a nice chunk of that is earmarked for these irresponsible, counter-productive, and oftentimes corrupt programs. Then wonder why I'm less likely (and able!) to help out locally.
Nice hat. Is that tinfoil or aluminum?
Care to back any of that up?
Yet you'll hear just about every political candidate promise to "create more jobs" as if they are widgets that can be mass-manufactured in greater quantity if the gubmint would just turn up that job-making machine's dial to "11".
And so many people will cry "the government needs to create more jobs!". Or criticize one politician or another for not creating enough jobs.
I don't get it, and it kind of irks me when I hear such nonsense.
No one deserves a job, or a living wage, or anything other than the opportunity to make any of the above for themselves. No one even deserves happiness IMHO -- just the right to pursue it.
Here's a great, on-topic article from the Cato institute that addresses the unemployment issue, and has some great commentary regarding the cluelessness of both Repubnocrats and Demolicans in this respect.
Considering the event's proximity to Cernobyl, I think the extra radiation and toxic chemicals would barely be noticeable above the background radiation. But you do have a point. I'm doubting they were following and sort of green prodecures when busting CRTs and capacitors all over the ground.
But, please be careful not to refer to this Ukranian event as a "joke", especially on NYC subways.
Ukraine is joke to you?! Ukraine is NOT JOKE!
Good idea, but the submit button on that page appears to do nothing. Try here instead.
Hey fuckwit moderators: this is not offtopic. It's from the spammer's own website mentioned in the article.
There really needs to be some sort of IQ test before mod points are given out. Really.
I hope you're being properly supportive in this, her time of need. If I may offer a little advice: tell her not to give up, keep trying, apply herself, and one day she just might be the town whore. If not, reassure here that 2nd place isn't so bad.
This should (1) not have been posted as AC, since it will fall below most readers' radar and (2) be modded up.
Thank you for your consideration.
Hmm, I've never heard Canada described as so, well, Japanese. I'm not trolling or kidding, this is true. An excellent comparison I've heard many times that seems to parallel your statement is:
In America, The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease.
In Japan, The Nail That Stands Up Gets Hammered Down.
True:
Old Oklahoma state motto (as seen on license plates): Oklahoma is OK!
Get it? OK is the state abbreviation, but everyone knows it really meant Oklahoma isn't all that great -- just OK. So they changed it to spoil all the jokes . . .
New Oklahoma state motto (as seen on license plates): The Sooner State
Because, of course, you'd sooner be anywhere else, and the sooner you get out of OK the more OK you'll actually feel.
I don't diagree with your sentiment or conclusion, but I'm afraid you erred here:
... personal property".
Party A is free to rifle through party B's personal property in order to find guilt, and party B is left with no defense.
I don't think anyone could reasonably argue that querying a world-readable, publicly-shared directory or hard drive in your computer is akin to "[rifling] through
Again, I agree that their tactics are wrong at best and illegal at worst, but only because of the end-run around the normal subpoena process, not because they gather evidence from your freely and intentionally shared personal property.
So, if the previously posted assertions about the harms of fluoride are true, why don't residents of Portland exhibit lower rates of supidity, cancer, docility, senility, malleability, etc.? And don't try to tell me they do -- I've been there.
Don't worry, my lawyers will keep you in check. DeciJob/DJ(TM) is already trademarked and patented as a concept (how you ask? I just coded it into some software, and you know the rest . . . ).
:)
Funny as hell, really. BTW, how many BagdadBobs are in a DeciJob? I think we now must inform them all that they are too far from reality. Or set them up the bomb. Or something
It's really not as amazingly useless as, say, your post is amazingly pompous, elitist, or annoying.
Unsettling Fluoride references aside, ease off on the potential new users. They won't hurt you, or jeapordize your 3l337 }00l status.
Not goatse, but gross as hell just the same. Eww.
And, since the grandparent mentioned David St. Hubbins: on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is horrific, cottage-cheese-filled-balloon-ass fat, I have to say that the pics at that link go to eleven .
Where have you been? Would you care to substantiate any of that allegedly "Insightful" drivel? My pre-emptive strike follows, please enjoy this list of limitations which increase in severity with chronology:
316 U.S. 52 (1942). See also Breard v. City of Alexandria, 341 U.S. 622 (1951). The doctrine was one of the bases upon which the banning of all commercials for cigarettes from radio and television was upheld. Capital Broadcasting Co. v. Mitchell, 333 F. Supp. 582 (D.D.C. 1971) (three-judge court), aff'd per curiam, 405 U.S. 1000 (1972).
Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Comm'n on Human Relations, 413 U.S. 376 (1973).
Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U.S. 809 (1975).
Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748 (1976). Justice Rehnquist dissented. Id. at 781.
Linmark Ass'n v. Township of Willingboro, 431 U.S. 85 (1977).
Commercial speech is viewed by the Court as usually hardier than other speech; because advertising is the sine qua non of commercial profits, it is less likely to be chilled by regulation. Thus, the difference inheres in both the nature of the speech and the nature of the governmental interest. Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748, 771-72 n.24 (1976); Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Ass'n, 436 U.S. 447, 455-56 (1978). It is, of course, important to develop distinctions between commercial speech and other speech for purposes of determining when broader regulation is permissible. The Court's definitional statements have been general, referring to commercial speech as that ``proposing a commercial transaction,'' Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Ass'n, supra, or as ``expression related solely to the economic interests of the speaker and its audience.'' Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Comm'n, 447 U.S. 557, 561 (1980). It has simply viewed as noncommercial the advertising of views on public policy that would inhere to the economic benefit of the speaker. Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Comm'n, 447 U.S. 530 (1980). So too, the Court has refused to treat as commercial speech charitable solicitation undertaken by professional fundraisers, characterizing the commercial component as ``inextricably intertwined with otherwise fully protected speech.'' Riley v. National Fed'n of the Blind, 487 U.S. 781, 796 (1988). By contrast, a mixing of home economics information with a sales pitch at a ``Tupperware'' party did not remove the transaction from commercial speech. Board of Trustees v. Fox, 492 U.S. 469 (1989).
Peel v. Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Comm'n, 496 U.S. 91 (1990).
And, may personal fave, from Contrived Distinctions: The Doctrine of Commercial Speech in First Amendment Jurisprudence by Jonathan W. Emord, from which the following elucidating quote is taken:
Indeed, the Court's commercial speech jurisprudence is a striking anomaly in First Amendment law, for -- with the exception of obscenity and fighting words -- no other speech content is so disfavored by the Court. Despite its willingness to single out business and economic communication for disfavored treatment, the Court has never articulated a principled reason why discrimination against commercial speech content is consistent with freedom of speech.
From 1942 until 1976 the Supreme Court denied speech it categorized as purely commercial any constitutional protection. In 1976 the Court changed direction by holding that the simple advertisement "I will sell you X prescription drug at Y price" was protected by the First Amendment. The Court insisted, however, that there remained "commonsense differences between speech that does 'no more than propose a commercial transaction' . . . and other varieties." Since 1976 the Court has abandoned its decision to afford commercial speech greater First Amendment protection. It has elected to give such speech almost no protection and held, as it did in 1942, that the content of speech that proposes a commercial transaction, even when intertwined with speech about noncommercial concerns, is regulable.
I look forward to your rebuttal.
Thanks -- you were submitting while I was previewing my own reply, I guess, but I appreciate the added point about National Do Not Call lists as an example of gummint regulation of commericial speech.
;)
I also didn't think of the practicality angle on the b2b "spam" argument It's definitely not spam, as you indicate, and no judge or jury would ding you for sending one (1) email to the purchasing agent of Widgetcorp who already buys a similar product -- the $1k isn't worth the hassle. In fact, a $1k fine for 100 or so good b2b leads (assuming 99% of purchasing agents would not press charges on you for sedning a single email and subsequently honoring and requests to not email them again which, BTW, is what I consider to be minimally decent business practices,) On the other hand, 1e7 x $1k ($10 million) for the herbal viagra spam that everyone and their grandma gets is a juicy low-hanging fruit under this new law. Good for CA. Sometimes their "leadership" isn't all bad.
Know what? Thank You. You're right; I checked. Worse, I've misused that once already before now, in a context in which I wish I hadn't. I'm serious. Grammar nazis don't scare me -- I enjoy learning. Seriously, thank you. I won't make that mistake again.
For example, if you are a business owner producing widget A, and, while searching the web you find a company that buys A widgets to make B widgets, you proceed to look up their contact information, introduce yourself, and request someone get back to you if they are interested - this whole scenario is now illegal.
Right. And? So the spammer has to resort to traditional comtact methods (such as snail mail, which the spammer him or herself must pay for, or a telephone call to the receptionist, which may or may not provide authorization to talk to or email the desired party.) What's the problem with the ways that have worked well for so long? Just because email addresses are easy to harvest and cheap to shotgun-spam doesn't mean spammers have a right to use them that way.
Roughly 90% of my snail mail box is junk mail. Yet I don't see any politicians jumping on bills like these that would outlaw sending bulk or individual "commercial" letters.
The snail mail costs the sender money. Spam costs you money (directly or indirectly in the form of higher ISP fees). Moreover, the Direct Mail Assoc. tends to honor requests to cease sending junk mail. The local businesses may still snail-spam you, but remember that you can always cost them even more money by stuffing their own brochures back into their own business reply envelopes and mailing them back to them. On thier dime (or $0.37, in this case.)
Commercial speech has never been, nor should it ever be free.
Yeah, but this has been significantly eroding for several decades. At this point there are very few restrictions unique to commercial speech.
You'll forgive my US-centricity here since the law in question is a California law, but the only law that really counts IMHO (the Constitution) provides protection for free speech, not commercial speech. That's plenty erosion-resistant to me.
I suspect that ["do not call lists" not applying to non-profits] has nothing to do with the issue of commercial speech per se. The list is promulgated by the FTC. They're not empowered to regulate persons not engaged in trade.
Er, that's the point. No org such as the FTC could, without constitutional amendment, exist and monitor or control non-commerical speech, but the FTC can and does restrict commerical speech. Q.E.D.
Stop the FUD and RTFL (Read The Fine Law):
;)
The bill would instead prohibit a person or entity located in California from initiating or advertising in unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisements.
So:
1. Not commercial. Flame away in private.
2. The "spoofs" would need to include some commercial message or invitation to buy a product. If that spoof doesn't include a commercial offer, case closed. If it does include a commercial offer, it would be rather easy to show whether or not a business relationship exists between the acutal sender and the commercial entity on whose behalf the email was (allegedly) sent or spoofed (i.e. compensation was exchanged or not). In short: cuo bono (who profits?).
3. Commerical endeavors have always suffered more restrictions than non-commercial ones. This does not jeapordize that clear line in any way, shape, or form. Witness the anti-telemarketing Do Not Call registries that apply to commercial interests but not non-profits or politicians. There is no slippery slope here, please move along.
Oh, and kindly bite my minorly-irritated shiny metal ass
Good points on GameSly's nonsense. I've been ignoring them since that Joost asshole tried to trick me into giving him my (valueable) domain name.
But, regarding bf1942 -- I don't get your point. The interface for bf1942, not unlike its amazing engine that can generate those wonderful huge landscapes with 64 players scrambling all about and dozens of vehicles (of all kinds), grounbreaking, awesome, yet relatively immature. In fact, it's the same console-based interface from Quake1. To kick a player, you open the console and type 'kick N' where N is the player number from the scoreboard. Initiating or affirmative voting is the same command. It's pretty simple to me, but then again I used to write console scripts in quake games.
Point is, the user-interface for the below-average player will come in time, but to me the implementation that really counts is the engine, which bf1942 does amazingly well. Just like we had to wait for a rather late patch to Q1, Q2, and Half-Life to get a decent voting interface for the idiots (GUI pops up with "Kick d00d? F1=YES F2=NO"), forthcoming patches and/or mods to the bf1942 engine will make the voting interface dumb enough for even the n00best of n00bs to use. But, even then, is this really sufficient reason to call the interface to the whole game "HORRIBLE" (assuming you didn't just mean the kickvote interface)?
So, to answer your question, I guess I am here to say that the "interface to BF1942 isn't HORRIBLE." It could me made simpler, sure (can't everything?), but personally that would get in my way -- I don't want something popping up to impede my view at the wrong moment. I'm fully capable of reading the docs that say "press ~ to open the console. type 'kick N'. hit enter". What's so "HORRIBLE" about that?