Only since crusading monotheism started destroying the de facto pluralities that existed in earlier times did monogamy start to become anything more than a matter of taste, means, or convenience.
Er, no. Abraham, one of the most respected figures of the three largest monotheistic religion, was a polygamist—and his grandson, Jacob (who was renamed "Israel" later in life) also married a cousin (actually, two cousins). And I believe Muslims (who are most emphatically monotheists) still practice polygamy.
If you want to argue that polygamy and marrying cousins is good and want to legalize that at the same time as gay marriage, well, be my guest—that's the exact argument the people who oppose gay marriage have been pushing, that allowing gay marriage will open the floodgates for all these banned, ancient practices. I have no moral judgment to make, but making such argument as a proponent of gay marriage doesn't seem politically... sane.
If you want to blame proliferation of monogamy on anybody, blame it on Christianity (I don't know how much of this blame will be justified, but at least there aren't any famous religious figures since Jesus' time who had more than one wife at a time... unless you count some Mormons), but blaming it on all monotheistic religion is, well, historically uninformed.
Also, in your other post regarding LP's position, well, you know what, LP doesn't represent all "libertarians". One party representing all, or even "mainstream libertarians" on all issues would be the very antithesis of "libertarianism" (kinda like allowing free speech and expecting everyone to have the same opinion), not to mention that the word itself has been so diluted that even liberals can call themselves "social libertarian" these days.
As far as I am concerned, the most "libertarian" position on *any* issue is whichever position minimizes the role of the government and forces fewest people (those who were not infringing on others' fundamental rights) to act against their will. Forcing "gay marriage" down on an unwilling populus (i.e. forcing acceptance on people, rather than being satisfied with tolerance; since "right to marry", in the sense of a state-recognized union, isn't a fundamental right (give me any honest scholarly analysis that claims it is, and I might concede this point), making this an "equal rights issue" is dishonest) is not libertarian, as far as I am concerned.
P.S. And, one final point: perhaps I shouldn't have used the word "right" in describing the privileges a spouse in marriage has that no one else has. But that's all I meant: the powers (which are not fundamental rights) of a spouse is vastly different from powers of a domestic partner.
But when someone makes something an "equal rights" issue, the implication is that the rights involved are fundamental rights (i.e. rights that you have as a human being that the governments of the world could not give nor take away—only recognize and protect). Marriage "right" isn't a fundamental right, either for heterosexuals or homosexuals. So, just like I have no "equal rights" to have as much money as Bill Gates (since the amount of money anyone has isn't a fundamental right, only the pursuit of property, which the Founding Fathers euphemistically called "happiness"), gays (or "breeders") have no more "equal rights" to have their union recognized by the state.
If we want to quibble over details, we could also argue about the "equal rights" of straight people to enter into domestic partnership without the hassle of marriage (current California law sets a minimum age (something around 50 or 60s, I think) for heterosexual couples, while no such limit exists for homosexual couples).
how does someone know if i downloaded an mp3 without using bittorrent?
If you just downloaded it from some website, barring some very intrusive methods such as deep packet inspection by ISPs (so far, I don't know any who does this in U.S.)—or website hosts who betray you, or maybe the website itself was set up by cronies of MPAA and RIAA)—no, there's no way.
I mean, theoretically, there is a way, because most HTTP connections are clear-text, and any one router between you and the website could potentially inspect every single packet and put the picture together that you downloaded some file from somewhere, but given the effort required, how few people actually download copyright files from websites rather than P2P, or given how much easier it is to take the website itself down, if it's not run by MPAA or RIAA, they don't bother with downloaders in these normal web traffic.
The same goes for FTP, and that one network that we are not supposed to talk about.
As for any other P2P, well, if you connect to one of MPAA or RIAA baits and download, then that's how they will know you downloaded (although in that case you could argue that it was an "authorized distribution", since you got the file from the agents of the copyright owner). But most of the times, they will try to get you by downloading from you (and if anyone connects to you via P2P, they *have to* know your IP; that's how Internet works, there's no way to spoof the IP completely—i.e. no proxy, just spoof to a completely unrelated IP address—if there is any actual data transfer, as opposed to SYN floods and such)... but in this case, people have made arguments that such downloads (upload from your point of view) is also "authorized distribution", since people downloading are acting agents of the copyright owner.
ruling through fear is a quick way to unite all your enemies (and most formerly neutral parties) against you,
I said "be so overwhelmingly powerful", not "be so overwhelmingly oppressive". One thing that characterized the Roman rule is relative tolerance and local autonomy... especially compared to other former rulers like the Babylonians.
I don't support the recent U.S. foreign policies where we topple (or at least attempt to) regimes that have not proven to be and will never be a credible threat against U.S. interests. But I don't support bending over backwards for these international organizations either (or dealing softly with enemies who dared to attack us or those who help them—Afghanistan and Pakistan to some extent these days).
After all, it was a U.S. president who said "speak softly and carry a big stick," and that advice from nearly a century ago might still apply today—or even more so, since U.S. now has even a bigger stick.
Why not just give a `right of reply' and be done with it?
Unless by "right of reply", you mean the existing free speech rights that everyone already has, I'd rather have libel suits than some "right of reply".
Any reasonable enactment of "right of reply" will include provisions which make it mandatory to publish the reply in the same forum where the defamatory statement was originally made. That means if I ever make a statement on my website considered defamatory by anyone, then, by law, I would have to print, on my own website, at my own cost, a statement which would directly contradict what I said and which I would most likely not agree with.
Free speech doesn't mean anyone can put any sign they want on my lawn. Free speech simply means I can put whatever sign I want on my lawn (save for obscenity laws and local codes), and maybe public places, where such posting is allowed.
So, I would rather have libel suits, which I just need to fight off once, rather than "right of reply", which would be more insidious and annoying than libel suits.
Maybe you are just trolling (but then, given your UID, maybe you are just new to the whole "Internet thing"), but it's very easy.
They either run trackers (or some trackers publish list of connected IPs somewhere, although I'd hope not many do these days), or they simply connect to a torrent, the way anybody connects to it, and collect the list of IPs connected to that torrent.
For other P2P networks, like Kazaa (i.e. the Napster style networks), it's even easier—to find out, and to prove in court, at least as far as "making available" goes.
Once they have a record of a particular IP sharing a particular file at a particular time, it's usually not that difficult to find out (at least with proper court orders) who was using, or at least paying for the Internet connection.
Can you think of a more effective way to avoid inter-state wars than to encourage dialogue?
Yes, I can. Be so overwhelmingly powerful so that no one will dare make an open war against you.
The one thing that has stopped a major war since the end of WWII has been the existence of nuclear weapons (see: "MAD"), together with the fact that there were so few superpowers (basically Russia and U.S., at least until the end of the Cold War), that no one really dared to make an open war against these superpowers—and because of the possibility of nuclear annihilation, U.S. and Russia didn't dare fight each other directly.
But you know what? U.N. didn't end the Cold War. It didn't even help with any of the major crisis that might have escalated cold war (the single phone line between Washington and Kremlin was far more responsible for that). What did end the Cold War was the arms race up to the end of 80s and the sheer economic power of U.S. triumphing over that of U.S.S.R. The way U.N. would have it, we would still have relatively powerful Russia bickering with U.S.
The only true path to peace is through might (see: "Pax Romana"). "Peace through diplomacy" may be a noble idea, but, like socialism, it is an unrealistic one that completely ignores the reality—the reality of politics and human nature—and will not work 'til angels govern.
If that comment is based on my vote on Prop. 8, well, you have proved yourself a bigot by daring to judge someone by his vote on a single proposition.
Here are my reasons (and, I hope, if any other self-identified libertarian voted the way I did, others') for voting yes on Prop. 8, in the order of importance:
1. Prop. 8 was an effort to reverse the legislation-from-bench by San Francisco judges who ruled gay marriage valid, in the absence of any legal support for such decision (note that gay couples were granted domestic partnership, which I have nothing against, long before).
2. The campaign for "No on Prop. 8" was dishonest or disingenuous at best in framing this an "equal rights" issue. No, this is about the name and definition of "marriage". The real, and more realistically achievable equal rights issue would be making the legal force of domestic partnership for gay couples equal of marriage (thanks to my gay friends, I do know now that domestic partnership doesn't quite carry the same rights and privileges as marriage). A lot of people, including me, who voted yes on Prop. 8 would have voted yes on another proposition that declared domestic partnership legally equal to marriage (such as in hospital visitation rights or inheritance) without carrying the name "marriage".
3. You know what, I wasn't comfortable of changing the definition of "marriage" to somehow have it mean any coupling of any two (or more, I guess) human beings. It has always meant binding of a man and a woman, and I didn't see any reason that the meaning of this familiar word should be changed. Equal rights issue can be resolved without having to explicitly re-define marriage to include same-sex union, which has never been done in the recorded history, even in cultures like that of ancient Greece that accepted certain kinds of homosexual relationships without stigma.
As a libertarian, my deepest wish is that the government not be dragged into this issue, or acceptance be forced on those who are not willing to accept gay couples ("acceptance" being vastly different from "tolerance"; libertarianism stands for more tolerance wherever possible, because that extends everyone's freedom, but it does not endorse enforced acceptance, since that decreases freedom (i.e. freedom of association) of those who are forced to accept those who they would rather not). It looks more and more like the only way out is for the state to get out of marriage business (i.e. don't give out "marriage licenses"; if it must, give out "civil union certificate", and let other traditional entities handle the matter of "marriage"), and I think I would be fine with that—if Catholics (or some humanist "priest") want to marry gays, let them, as long as I am not forced to be a Catholic (or whatever this humanist "religion" is).
Your trolling post assumes that there is no stupid legislation in any other state. At least CA's intent is good
Nearly all stupid legislations have good intent behind them. You should really look up what the road to hell is paved with, if "intent is good" is a good excuse for any stupid action.
BTW, I would like to remind you that California (with my help, I might add) passed Prop. 8. If your definition of "stupid state" is a state that doesn't allow gay marriage (or were you talking about right to marry your cousins?), California is one of them, and I say that as a Californian.
You can delete your comment within the 5-minute editing window after your comment was initially posted to the site. Click 'edit comment' and then click on the 'delete' link in the bottom right corner of the comment edit window.
Slashdot has gotten worse these years, but at least it's better than Digg—it doesn't crash my Konqueror every other story with its Javascripts.
Sure SF is special. The bay area is ringed it large cities.
Only the snobs in SF think they are "the city."
I wouldn't say just the snobs in SF (although there *are* a lot of obnoxious liberals living there). I live in Berkeley and everyone here calls it "the City".
If I had to guess, the main difference between San Francisco and other large cities (e.g. Los Angeles) is when you go to San Francisco, there is a clear division when you enter the city (you cross the bridge and pay the toll), whereas in many of other cities, you just figure you entered the city when things get crowded and smoggy.
Since you still don't know how to read, let me quote it again, this time, with emphasis on the two words that seems to escape you on two separate reads:
Presumably, they are planning on using this for countries that have no orbital launch capability (which would include most "rogue states", although not Iran since recently)Ã"after all, you don't even need a satellite to hit it; you just need a missile that's equivalent to ICBM (or less).
Nothing you are saying contradicts what I said (ICBM is offered as upper limit; I don't know enough about amateur rocketry, but since the blimp doesn't achieve orbit, I knew enough that ICBM wouldn't be required), and frankly I think you are just over-estimating the capabilities of rogue states—nuclear bomb, for example, requires nothing beyond some college-level physics, but it still thankfully escapes capabilities of rogue states.
However, I will contradict what you said: U.S. government does not need a spy blimp to spy on U.S. citizens—in fact, U.K. has already shown the way to that: install CCTVs everywhere and have it government controlled. It will be much more effective than a sky blimp (you don't need a line of sight from the sky) and far cheaper.
While we should always be wary of what the government does, if they decide to use this for surveillance of citizens, especially in the cities where most of them live, I think we should far more worried about the stupidity of our leaders than any privacy concern.
And are you really sure the enemies will be more willing to shoot it down than U.S. citizens? The U.S. would be already in a state of war (or something similar enough) with such an enemy and will not hesitate to respond with lethal force against the attempt and the perpetrators. For all the bad things U.S. has done so far, it has not acted against its citizens with lethal force, for example, in a riot situation (unlike the police forces of so many countries, even developed ones like South Korea; "self-defense" cases excepted of course).
And 50% of the folk out there would install Chrome long enough to switch their gmail to forward to a new address, and start work finding another free webmail site.
But of course, if Google decided to be that evil, they also would have turned off free forwarding (or POP3 or IMAP access) by then. As far as I know, Google is the only free webmail service that offers any of these things for free. I have a Yahoo mail account that I end up checking every year or so because I can't forward it elsewhere.
If this is in response to the "Jews" comment in the parent, well, here's news for you: "Jewish" is racial as well as religious. There are plenty of Jews who do not practice some branch of Judaism (you know, keeping Shabbat and all that). They often still identify themselves as "Jewish", as a matter of culture and heritage.
And when the Nazis persecuted Jews, they didn't really care whether they persecuted practicing Jews or not—Einstein certainly wasn't a practicing Jew (his "God does not roll dice" comment notwithstanding, he didn't believe in a traditional Judeo-Christian God, or for that matter creation, which is why he tried to construct cosmology that allowed for a "static" universe and ended up making his "biggest mistake" of his life), but he was still forced to flee to America because of his Jewish heritage.
And, if you don't want to bring Nazis into the discussion, today's antisemites (milder than the Nazis, but racist nonetheless) don't really seem to care which particular branch of Judaism, if any at all, a particular Jew happens to adhere to.
How dare all those browser developers make money off the free http services available out there?
What "free" HTTP service? Most people pay for their net connections (which happen to work with HTTP protocol), and where they don't pay directly, they usually end up paying for it indirectly (like by buying coffee at a coffee shop, or paying tuition at school).
If you are talking about websites, not ISPs, well, show me a website that doesn't want more eyeballs (for ads, if it's commercial, for potential customers if they are selling something, for vanity or propaganda if it's a personal website or some kind of political website; most websites, however, do not want bandwidth usage without associated eyeball, which is why webmasters hated some Internet security software which pre-fetched every link in a page before the user ever clicked on it, and which is why hotlinking (such as images) is considered impolite).
When you browse web, usually somebody gets compensated in some way for every aspect of it. In this case, it doesn't sound like Google was compensated in any way (monetary or non-monetary), since as far as I know Google doesn't have a political agenda relating to free SMS.
Idiot. You don't need an orbital launch capability to shoot down a baloon from 66k feet. Amateur rocketeers routinely hit 100k feet.
Learn to read before calling anyone idiot. I quote my own comment (emphasis added now, since you apparently can't read more than a sentence at a time):
Presumably, they are planning on using this for countries that have no orbital launch capability (which would include most "rogue states", although not Iran since recently)â"after all, you don't even need a satellite to hit it; you just need a missile that's equivalent to ICBM (or less).
Your obsession with unlimited-service-for-fixed-fee contracts in America is quite frankly puzzling. It's like you have to make every part of your capitalistic society and make it into pseudo-communism.
I don't use any of these (webhosting resources, usenet bandwidth, or cell phone) heavily (I doubt any significant fraction ever does), and I'd have to get a lobotomy before I become stupid enough to pay for someone else's usage.
There are missiles that are capable of bringing down the U-2, which flies at 70,000 feet. I don't think a fat, non-moving target sitting at 65,000 feet will be a problem.
But thankfully, those who possess such missiles have no reason to shot down our airship—or at least since we won't (and shouldn't) be using the ship against them, one hopes they would consider such act of war rather carefully.
And on the other hand, rocket propelled grenades that are more often wielded by our current enemies cannot reach the height.
Any country, like China, that can put a satellite into orbit, can shoot this thing down.
Presumably, they are planning on using this for countries that have no orbital launch capability (which would include most "rogue states", although not Iran since recently)—after all, you don't even need a satellite to hit it; you just need a missile that's equivalent to ICBM (or less).
This is also presumably for places where current spy satellites can't provide enough detail (or enough continuous coverage with the existing network of satellites).
Other countries with space programs *could* shoot it down whether these are being used against them or not, but, well, that's an act of war. They won't take such actions lightly. There's a reason Russia or China hasn't nuked us yet.
I really hate and abhor the fact, that there's a company out there gathering such immense amounts of data on everyone - for the company's gain, not the public's.
Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "public", but I am *really glad* that it's a private company doing this, not the government.
Having said that, I did move away from GMail and maintain my own email server now (in addition to staying at an arm's length from Google products that can reveal and store my preferences, such as Google Reader), precisely because of privacy implications. I do use GrandCentral (since almost 2 years ago), but I say nothing important on the phone. If it's important enough, then it's important enough to leave a paper trail through email (or say in person to make sure no record can be kept).
Iceland never said anything about UK depositors money would not be guarantied (Your linked news says no such thing). The problem was that the EU directive was not clear enough. (snip) And because of the incompetent EU directives, the UK decided to bully Iceland instead of settling the issue in a EU court.
Er, Iceland is not part of EU. I don't know exactly to what extent EU's economic regulations Iceland has agreed to, but it sounds like problems between Iceland and UK are out of EU's jurisdiction (unless UK gave up its sovereignty when it joined EU, which I doubt). Iceland (be it Icelandic private corporation or the government) incurred an obligation when it took deposits from foreign depositors. If they can't follow through that obligation, there must be consequences.
And whether local depositors are getting shafted or not (through the devaluation of the Iceland kronor), that is simply not the UK's concern, and the comparison to Germany's war reparation is simply, well, I think, would be insulting if I were a UK citizen (thankfully, I'm across the Atlantic, far from these European problems). UK is simply asking Iceland to pay what it owes UK according to peace-time laws and contracts. It bears no resemblance at all to a treaty forced down on a loser who lost a world war.
Overall, it looks like the article you link throws impartiality out the window, and none of the facts I have are not in dispute: UK depositors' deposits are not being guaranteed (well, maybe there was no formal announcement, but since all that UK is seeking is such a guarantee, if there is such a guarantee, then there would be no problem, no?), and UK acts to ensure its own national interest in a lawful (perhaps a bit too "creative", but nonetheless lawful) manner. Iceland can't exactly cry foul until it clears up whether it will fulfill its own obligation.
Here's my experience with statistics in a corporate environment.
YOU: Sir, our team has completed our month-long analysis of the economic data. We've done preliminary data analysis, removed outliers, run a Pearson error test, t-interval hypothesis tests, and a Chi-square analysis. The confidence interval is (95%: 45.1 to 52.8) and you can see that in contradiction to your earlier theory, our findings are very strongly correlated, with P-value 0.0026.
EXECUTIVE: Yeah, fuck off.
That's because they don't hire you to fill their head with technical jargon. They hire you specifically so that they don't have to think about those things (even if they had the necessary training to understand statistics and any other data mining techniques before). After all, if they could do it, and they want to do it themselves, why would they hire you?
So it sounds more like a communication problem from your end—you just didn't give your boss the answer he asked for (and that doesn't necessarily mean agreeing with his every whim, although going out of your way to contradict him can't be helpful) and instead spent too much time trying to justify your salary.
The MCP's promised to pay, but not a single MCP anticipated a total collapse of their economy. That was an unknowable, unthinkable, completely unforeseen circumstance they couldn't have predicted.
Why does that remind me of the incessant phrase from "Atlas Shrugged", "But I couldn't help it"?
Economy (of any country, any region) is a result of human actions. It's not a freak wave, storm-of-the-century, or an earthquake. Whether it's completely predictable or not, well, of course you can't predict the result of many thinking (or rather, unthinking) human beings acting indepently—does that mean you can blame it for anything you do wrong?
From what I can gather in 5 minutes (from Wikipedia and the articles it cites), Iceland, as a whole, was not blameless for the collapse of their own economy. It's not as if Iceland did no wrong and U.K. just proceeded to do what might amount to an act of war. Iceland refused to guarantee the value of U.K.-held assets, so U.K. froze Iceland assets. Quid pro quo.
Result of what might happen when one does not guarantee depositors' deposits might have been unknowable, unthinkable, and completely unforeseen, especially if the one making such bad choice is not does not have sufficient mental faculties, but that does not absolve one of his contractual obligations. No "act of God" is involved here, and contracts still hold.
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Only since crusading monotheism started destroying the de facto pluralities that existed in earlier times did monogamy start to become anything more than a matter of taste, means, or convenience.
Er, no. Abraham, one of the most respected figures of the three largest monotheistic religion, was a polygamist—and his grandson, Jacob (who was renamed "Israel" later in life) also married a cousin (actually, two cousins). And I believe Muslims (who are most emphatically monotheists) still practice polygamy.
If you want to argue that polygamy and marrying cousins is good and want to legalize that at the same time as gay marriage, well, be my guest—that's the exact argument the people who oppose gay marriage have been pushing, that allowing gay marriage will open the floodgates for all these banned, ancient practices. I have no moral judgment to make, but making such argument as a proponent of gay marriage doesn't seem politically ... sane.
If you want to blame proliferation of monogamy on anybody, blame it on Christianity (I don't know how much of this blame will be justified, but at least there aren't any famous religious figures since Jesus' time who had more than one wife at a time ... unless you count some Mormons), but blaming it on all monotheistic religion is, well, historically uninformed.
Also, in your other post regarding LP's position, well, you know what, LP doesn't represent all "libertarians". One party representing all, or even "mainstream libertarians" on all issues would be the very antithesis of "libertarianism" (kinda like allowing free speech and expecting everyone to have the same opinion), not to mention that the word itself has been so diluted that even liberals can call themselves "social libertarian" these days.
As far as I am concerned, the most "libertarian" position on *any* issue is whichever position minimizes the role of the government and forces fewest people (those who were not infringing on others' fundamental rights) to act against their will. Forcing "gay marriage" down on an unwilling populus (i.e. forcing acceptance on people, rather than being satisfied with tolerance; since "right to marry", in the sense of a state-recognized union, isn't a fundamental right (give me any honest scholarly analysis that claims it is, and I might concede this point), making this an "equal rights issue" is dishonest) is not libertarian, as far as I am concerned.
P.S. And, one final point: perhaps I shouldn't have used the word "right" in describing the privileges a spouse in marriage has that no one else has. But that's all I meant: the powers (which are not fundamental rights) of a spouse is vastly different from powers of a domestic partner.
But when someone makes something an "equal rights" issue, the implication is that the rights involved are fundamental rights (i.e. rights that you have as a human being that the governments of the world could not give nor take away—only recognize and protect). Marriage "right" isn't a fundamental right, either for heterosexuals or homosexuals. So, just like I have no "equal rights" to have as much money as Bill Gates (since the amount of money anyone has isn't a fundamental right, only the pursuit of property, which the Founding Fathers euphemistically called "happiness"), gays (or "breeders") have no more "equal rights" to have their union recognized by the state.
If we want to quibble over details, we could also argue about the "equal rights" of straight people to enter into domestic partnership without the hassle of marriage (current California law sets a minimum age (something around 50 or 60s, I think) for heterosexual couples, while no such limit exists for homosexual couples).
how does someone know if i downloaded an mp3 without using bittorrent?
If you just downloaded it from some website, barring some very intrusive methods such as deep packet inspection by ISPs (so far, I don't know any who does this in U.S.)—or website hosts who betray you, or maybe the website itself was set up by cronies of MPAA and RIAA)—no, there's no way.
I mean, theoretically, there is a way, because most HTTP connections are clear-text, and any one router between you and the website could potentially inspect every single packet and put the picture together that you downloaded some file from somewhere, but given the effort required, how few people actually download copyright files from websites rather than P2P, or given how much easier it is to take the website itself down, if it's not run by MPAA or RIAA, they don't bother with downloaders in these normal web traffic.
The same goes for FTP, and that one network that we are not supposed to talk about.
As for any other P2P, well, if you connect to one of MPAA or RIAA baits and download, then that's how they will know you downloaded (although in that case you could argue that it was an "authorized distribution", since you got the file from the agents of the copyright owner). But most of the times, they will try to get you by downloading from you (and if anyone connects to you via P2P, they *have to* know your IP; that's how Internet works, there's no way to spoof the IP completely—i.e. no proxy, just spoof to a completely unrelated IP address—if there is any actual data transfer, as opposed to SYN floods and such) ... but in this case, people have made arguments that such downloads (upload from your point of view) is also "authorized distribution", since people downloading are acting agents of the copyright owner.
ruling through fear is a quick way to unite all your enemies (and most formerly neutral parties) against you,
I said "be so overwhelmingly powerful", not "be so overwhelmingly oppressive". One thing that characterized the Roman rule is relative tolerance and local autonomy ... especially compared to other former rulers like the Babylonians.
I don't support the recent U.S. foreign policies where we topple (or at least attempt to) regimes that have not proven to be and will never be a credible threat against U.S. interests. But I don't support bending over backwards for these international organizations either (or dealing softly with enemies who dared to attack us or those who help them—Afghanistan and Pakistan to some extent these days).
After all, it was a U.S. president who said "speak softly and carry a big stick," and that advice from nearly a century ago might still apply today—or even more so, since U.S. now has even a bigger stick.
Why not just give a `right of reply' and be done with it?
Unless by "right of reply", you mean the existing free speech rights that everyone already has, I'd rather have libel suits than some "right of reply".
Any reasonable enactment of "right of reply" will include provisions which make it mandatory to publish the reply in the same forum where the defamatory statement was originally made. That means if I ever make a statement on my website considered defamatory by anyone, then, by law, I would have to print, on my own website, at my own cost, a statement which would directly contradict what I said and which I would most likely not agree with.
Free speech doesn't mean anyone can put any sign they want on my lawn. Free speech simply means I can put whatever sign I want on my lawn (save for obscenity laws and local codes), and maybe public places, where such posting is allowed.
So, I would rather have libel suits, which I just need to fight off once, rather than "right of reply", which would be more insidious and annoying than libel suits.
Maybe you are just trolling (but then, given your UID, maybe you are just new to the whole "Internet thing"), but it's very easy.
They either run trackers (or some trackers publish list of connected IPs somewhere, although I'd hope not many do these days), or they simply connect to a torrent, the way anybody connects to it, and collect the list of IPs connected to that torrent.
For other P2P networks, like Kazaa (i.e. the Napster style networks), it's even easier—to find out, and to prove in court, at least as far as "making available" goes.
Once they have a record of a particular IP sharing a particular file at a particular time, it's usually not that difficult to find out (at least with proper court orders) who was using, or at least paying for the Internet connection.
Can you think of a more effective way to avoid inter-state wars than to encourage dialogue?
Yes, I can. Be so overwhelmingly powerful so that no one will dare make an open war against you.
The one thing that has stopped a major war since the end of WWII has been the existence of nuclear weapons (see: "MAD"), together with the fact that there were so few superpowers (basically Russia and U.S., at least until the end of the Cold War), that no one really dared to make an open war against these superpowers—and because of the possibility of nuclear annihilation, U.S. and Russia didn't dare fight each other directly.
But you know what? U.N. didn't end the Cold War. It didn't even help with any of the major crisis that might have escalated cold war (the single phone line between Washington and Kremlin was far more responsible for that). What did end the Cold War was the arms race up to the end of 80s and the sheer economic power of U.S. triumphing over that of U.S.S.R. The way U.N. would have it, we would still have relatively powerful Russia bickering with U.S.
The only true path to peace is through might (see: "Pax Romana"). "Peace through diplomacy" may be a noble idea, but, like socialism, it is an unrealistic one that completely ignores the reality—the reality of politics and human nature—and will not work 'til angels govern.
No, but willful conducts do exacerbate the consequences. There's a reason premeditated murder gets heavier sentencing than manslaughter.
If that comment is based on my vote on Prop. 8, well, you have proved yourself a bigot by daring to judge someone by his vote on a single proposition.
Here are my reasons (and, I hope, if any other self-identified libertarian voted the way I did, others') for voting yes on Prop. 8, in the order of importance:
1. Prop. 8 was an effort to reverse the legislation-from-bench by San Francisco judges who ruled gay marriage valid, in the absence of any legal support for such decision (note that gay couples were granted domestic partnership, which I have nothing against, long before).
2. The campaign for "No on Prop. 8" was dishonest or disingenuous at best in framing this an "equal rights" issue. No, this is about the name and definition of "marriage". The real, and more realistically achievable equal rights issue would be making the legal force of domestic partnership for gay couples equal of marriage (thanks to my gay friends, I do know now that domestic partnership doesn't quite carry the same rights and privileges as marriage). A lot of people, including me, who voted yes on Prop. 8 would have voted yes on another proposition that declared domestic partnership legally equal to marriage (such as in hospital visitation rights or inheritance) without carrying the name "marriage".
3. You know what, I wasn't comfortable of changing the definition of "marriage" to somehow have it mean any coupling of any two (or more, I guess) human beings. It has always meant binding of a man and a woman, and I didn't see any reason that the meaning of this familiar word should be changed. Equal rights issue can be resolved without having to explicitly re-define marriage to include same-sex union, which has never been done in the recorded history, even in cultures like that of ancient Greece that accepted certain kinds of homosexual relationships without stigma.
As a libertarian, my deepest wish is that the government not be dragged into this issue, or acceptance be forced on those who are not willing to accept gay couples ("acceptance" being vastly different from "tolerance"; libertarianism stands for more tolerance wherever possible, because that extends everyone's freedom, but it does not endorse enforced acceptance, since that decreases freedom (i.e. freedom of association) of those who are forced to accept those who they would rather not). It looks more and more like the only way out is for the state to get out of marriage business (i.e. don't give out "marriage licenses"; if it must, give out "civil union certificate", and let other traditional entities handle the matter of "marriage"), and I think I would be fine with that—if Catholics (or some humanist "priest") want to marry gays, let them, as long as I am not forced to be a Catholic (or whatever this humanist "religion" is).
Your trolling post assumes that there is no stupid legislation in any other state. At least CA's intent is good
Nearly all stupid legislations have good intent behind them. You should really look up what the road to hell is paved with, if "intent is good" is a good excuse for any stupid action.
BTW, I would like to remind you that California (with my help, I might add) passed Prop. 8. If your definition of "stupid state" is a state that doesn't allow gay marriage (or were you talking about right to marry your cousins?), California is one of them, and I say that as a Californian.
You mean like Digg?
Slashdot has gotten worse these years, but at least it's better than Digg—it doesn't crash my Konqueror every other story with its Javascripts.
Not so fast. The scientists at Fermilab might still face a heavy fine for their crime.
I quote Willis Lamb, Nobel Laureate,
"The finder of a new elementary particle used to be rewarded by a Nobel Prize, but such a discovery now ought to be punished by a $10,000 fine."
And that was in the 50s, so with the inflation, you can only guess how heavy the fine would be now.
Sure SF is special. The bay area is ringed it large cities.
Only the snobs in SF think they are "the city."
I wouldn't say just the snobs in SF (although there *are* a lot of obnoxious liberals living there). I live in Berkeley and everyone here calls it "the City".
If I had to guess, the main difference between San Francisco and other large cities (e.g. Los Angeles) is when you go to San Francisco, there is a clear division when you enter the city (you cross the bridge and pay the toll), whereas in many of other cities, you just figure you entered the city when things get crowded and smoggy.
Yeah, because we all know that the President has complete and final budget-setting powers, right? Who controlled Congress under Reagan again?
Exactly. And who controlled congress during the Clinton years?
Clinton is getting way more credit than he deserves for the balanced budget, which the Republican congress voted for and passed.
You don't even need anything close to an ICBM.
Since you still don't know how to read, let me quote it again, this time, with emphasis on the two words that seems to escape you on two separate reads:
Presumably, they are planning on using this for countries that have no orbital launch capability (which would include most "rogue states", although not Iran since recently)Ã"after all, you don't even need a satellite to hit it; you just need a missile that's equivalent to ICBM (or less).
Nothing you are saying contradicts what I said (ICBM is offered as upper limit; I don't know enough about amateur rocketry, but since the blimp doesn't achieve orbit, I knew enough that ICBM wouldn't be required), and frankly I think you are just over-estimating the capabilities of rogue states—nuclear bomb, for example, requires nothing beyond some college-level physics, but it still thankfully escapes capabilities of rogue states.
However, I will contradict what you said: U.S. government does not need a spy blimp to spy on U.S. citizens—in fact, U.K. has already shown the way to that: install CCTVs everywhere and have it government controlled. It will be much more effective than a sky blimp (you don't need a line of sight from the sky) and far cheaper.
While we should always be wary of what the government does, if they decide to use this for surveillance of citizens, especially in the cities where most of them live, I think we should far more worried about the stupidity of our leaders than any privacy concern.
And are you really sure the enemies will be more willing to shoot it down than U.S. citizens? The U.S. would be already in a state of war (or something similar enough) with such an enemy and will not hesitate to respond with lethal force against the attempt and the perpetrators. For all the bad things U.S. has done so far, it has not acted against its citizens with lethal force, for example, in a riot situation (unlike the police forces of so many countries, even developed ones like South Korea; "self-defense" cases excepted of course).
And 50% of the folk out there would install Chrome long enough to switch their gmail to forward to a new address, and start work finding another free webmail site.
But of course, if Google decided to be that evil, they also would have turned off free forwarding (or POP3 or IMAP access) by then. As far as I know, Google is the only free webmail service that offers any of these things for free. I have a Yahoo mail account that I end up checking every year or so because I can't forward it elsewhere.
Religious hate is not racism.
Religion is a choice. "Race" or ethnicity is not.
If this is in response to the "Jews" comment in the parent, well, here's news for you: "Jewish" is racial as well as religious. There are plenty of Jews who do not practice some branch of Judaism (you know, keeping Shabbat and all that). They often still identify themselves as "Jewish", as a matter of culture and heritage.
And when the Nazis persecuted Jews, they didn't really care whether they persecuted practicing Jews or not—Einstein certainly wasn't a practicing Jew (his "God does not roll dice" comment notwithstanding, he didn't believe in a traditional Judeo-Christian God, or for that matter creation, which is why he tried to construct cosmology that allowed for a "static" universe and ended up making his "biggest mistake" of his life), but he was still forced to flee to America because of his Jewish heritage.
And, if you don't want to bring Nazis into the discussion, today's antisemites (milder than the Nazis, but racist nonetheless) don't really seem to care which particular branch of Judaism, if any at all, a particular Jew happens to adhere to.
How dare all those browser developers make money off the free http services available out there?
What "free" HTTP service? Most people pay for their net connections (which happen to work with HTTP protocol), and where they don't pay directly, they usually end up paying for it indirectly (like by buying coffee at a coffee shop, or paying tuition at school).
If you are talking about websites, not ISPs, well, show me a website that doesn't want more eyeballs (for ads, if it's commercial, for potential customers if they are selling something, for vanity or propaganda if it's a personal website or some kind of political website; most websites, however, do not want bandwidth usage without associated eyeball, which is why webmasters hated some Internet security software which pre-fetched every link in a page before the user ever clicked on it, and which is why hotlinking (such as images) is considered impolite).
When you browse web, usually somebody gets compensated in some way for every aspect of it. In this case, it doesn't sound like Google was compensated in any way (monetary or non-monetary), since as far as I know Google doesn't have a political agenda relating to free SMS.
Idiot. You don't need an orbital launch capability to shoot down a baloon from 66k feet. Amateur rocketeers routinely hit 100k feet.
Learn to read before calling anyone idiot. I quote my own comment (emphasis added now, since you apparently can't read more than a sentence at a time):
Presumably, they are planning on using this for countries that have no orbital launch capability (which would include most "rogue states", although not Iran since recently)â"after all, you don't even need a satellite to hit it; you just need a missile that's equivalent to ICBM (or less).
Your obsession with unlimited-service-for-fixed-fee contracts in America is quite frankly puzzling. It's like you have to make every part of your capitalistic society and make it into pseudo-communism.
I heartily agree!
That's why I use pay-for-only-what-you-use services like NearlyFreeSpeech.net, Usenet-News.net, and a pay-as-you-go cell phone plan.
I don't use any of these (webhosting resources, usenet bandwidth, or cell phone) heavily (I doubt any significant fraction ever does), and I'd have to get a lobotomy before I become stupid enough to pay for someone else's usage.
There are missiles that are capable of bringing down the U-2, which flies at 70,000 feet. I don't think a fat, non-moving target sitting at 65,000 feet will be a problem.
But thankfully, those who possess such missiles have no reason to shot down our airship—or at least since we won't (and shouldn't) be using the ship against them, one hopes they would consider such act of war rather carefully.
And on the other hand, rocket propelled grenades that are more often wielded by our current enemies cannot reach the height.
Any country, like China, that can put a satellite into orbit, can shoot this thing down.
Presumably, they are planning on using this for countries that have no orbital launch capability (which would include most "rogue states", although not Iran since recently)—after all, you don't even need a satellite to hit it; you just need a missile that's equivalent to ICBM (or less).
This is also presumably for places where current spy satellites can't provide enough detail (or enough continuous coverage with the existing network of satellites).
Other countries with space programs *could* shoot it down whether these are being used against them or not, but, well, that's an act of war. They won't take such actions lightly. There's a reason Russia or China hasn't nuked us yet.
I really hate and abhor the fact, that there's a company out there gathering such immense amounts of data on everyone - for the company's gain, not the public's.
Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "public", but I am *really glad* that it's a private company doing this, not the government.
Having said that, I did move away from GMail and maintain my own email server now (in addition to staying at an arm's length from Google products that can reveal and store my preferences, such as Google Reader), precisely because of privacy implications. I do use GrandCentral (since almost 2 years ago), but I say nothing important on the phone. If it's important enough, then it's important enough to leave a paper trail through email (or say in person to make sure no record can be kept).
Iceland never said anything about UK depositors money would not be guarantied (Your linked news says no such thing). The problem was that the EU directive was not clear enough.
(snip)
And because of the incompetent EU directives, the UK decided to bully Iceland instead of settling the issue in a EU court.
Er, Iceland is not part of EU. I don't know exactly to what extent EU's economic regulations Iceland has agreed to, but it sounds like problems between Iceland and UK are out of EU's jurisdiction (unless UK gave up its sovereignty when it joined EU, which I doubt). Iceland (be it Icelandic private corporation or the government) incurred an obligation when it took deposits from foreign depositors. If they can't follow through that obligation, there must be consequences.
And whether local depositors are getting shafted or not (through the devaluation of the Iceland kronor), that is simply not the UK's concern, and the comparison to Germany's war reparation is simply, well, I think, would be insulting if I were a UK citizen (thankfully, I'm across the Atlantic, far from these European problems). UK is simply asking Iceland to pay what it owes UK according to peace-time laws and contracts. It bears no resemblance at all to a treaty forced down on a loser who lost a world war.
Overall, it looks like the article you link throws impartiality out the window, and none of the facts I have are not in dispute: UK depositors' deposits are not being guaranteed (well, maybe there was no formal announcement, but since all that UK is seeking is such a guarantee, if there is such a guarantee, then there would be no problem, no?), and UK acts to ensure its own national interest in a lawful (perhaps a bit too "creative", but nonetheless lawful) manner. Iceland can't exactly cry foul until it clears up whether it will fulfill its own obligation.
Here's my experience with statistics in a corporate environment.
YOU: Sir, our team has completed our month-long analysis of the economic data. We've done preliminary data analysis, removed outliers, run a Pearson error test, t-interval hypothesis tests, and a Chi-square analysis. The confidence interval is (95%: 45.1 to 52.8) and you can see that in contradiction to your earlier theory, our findings are very strongly correlated, with P-value 0.0026.
EXECUTIVE: Yeah, fuck off.
That's because they don't hire you to fill their head with technical jargon. They hire you specifically so that they don't have to think about those things (even if they had the necessary training to understand statistics and any other data mining techniques before). After all, if they could do it, and they want to do it themselves, why would they hire you?
So it sounds more like a communication problem from your end—you just didn't give your boss the answer he asked for (and that doesn't necessarily mean agreeing with his every whim, although going out of your way to contradict him can't be helpful) and instead spent too much time trying to justify your salary.
The MCP's promised to pay, but not a single MCP anticipated a total collapse of their economy. That was an unknowable, unthinkable, completely unforeseen circumstance they couldn't have predicted.
Why does that remind me of the incessant phrase from "Atlas Shrugged", "But I couldn't help it"?
Economy (of any country, any region) is a result of human actions. It's not a freak wave, storm-of-the-century, or an earthquake. Whether it's completely predictable or not, well, of course you can't predict the result of many thinking (or rather, unthinking) human beings acting indepently—does that mean you can blame it for anything you do wrong?
From what I can gather in 5 minutes (from Wikipedia and the articles it cites), Iceland, as a whole, was not blameless for the collapse of their own economy. It's not as if Iceland did no wrong and U.K. just proceeded to do what might amount to an act of war. Iceland refused to guarantee the value of U.K.-held assets, so U.K. froze Iceland assets. Quid pro quo.
Result of what might happen when one does not guarantee depositors' deposits might have been unknowable, unthinkable, and completely unforeseen, especially if the one making such bad choice is not does not have sufficient mental faculties, but that does not absolve one of his contractual obligations. No "act of God" is involved here, and contracts still hold.