I was responding to what they put on their own website, which I have never seen the likes of spewed by any 800-lbs gorilla like Sun or Microsoft. Despite the choice of words, which led many to similar conclusions that these guys are complete assholes, their arguments nonetheless did not convince that their product was useful for any real purpose. With no logical reason to bother with it in the first place, the shitty attitude they chose to communicate with simply provided conviction to a foregone conclusion.
I understand how to come up with a business plan. Part of writing a business plan is market and risk analysis to say nothing of financial planning -- the latter being rather difficult WHEN YOU'RE ALREADY BROKE. I had done such an assessment, which took hundreds of hours of research and a reasonable sum of cold, hard cash. Writing a business plan is not just academically burying in books, public records, statistics and economic indicators, although that is an enormous part of the process, it also involves face-to-face communication with competitors, potential clients and government. It has nothing to do with being a yea or nay-sayer, but everything to do with making studied, methodical decisions supported as much as possible by facts and sound reasoning.
That analysis often leads people and businesses alike to move where conditions are more attractive or simply build reserves and wait for conditions to improve, possibly taking the time to fine-tune the business plan or throw it out entirely. Of course, a few martyrs are required to get the economy going lest it remain stuck with huge amounts of potential energy and no momentum.
All that said, there is a large logical leap from business and economics into questionable ethical philosophy when people assume that there is some character flaw in choosing to NOT risk financial suicide instead of considering those who refrain from jumping into a business venture head first may simply be choosing and timing their battles wisely instead of waging a commercial Gallipoli.
The entire purpose of a "cease and desist" letter is to keep things out of court and establish willfulness should they end up in court. You have the option of ignoring it and calling a potential bluff or playing nice and saving everyone a lot of time and money.
There is nothing unusual here. Why everytime Microsoft farts everyone runs screaming claiming it is an alien practice never seen before on earth continues to amaze me.
Basically, they are running a sweepstakes and a modified version of the "mail-in rebate," which is exactly the tactic Microsoft is, IMHO, legitimately arguing against.
Yes, I bothered to read the site, the article and the letter. Had you bothered to read and comprehend my statement you'd realize that yours changes nothing about mine.
PATRIOT unfortunately got pushed through when everyone, certainly those in congress, was suffering from acute post traumatic stress syndrome, something you hear many of them grumbling about in Washington on a daily basis.
That said, there is absolutely ZERO direct relationship between citizen and federal government in terms of legislation. NONE.
Sure, it sounds great, but if eighty million people -- more than three times the population of Canada -- wanted something done under this system, it is highly likely they wouldn't stand a chance of getting it. Say the entire country objected to how much we pay our legislators, what direct-democracy mechanism would you recommend we use to change that? The coersion of "we won't re-elect half of you next time around" is not direct-democracy and also presents pretty decent odds for incumbants to perpetually blame the losing 50% and vote in pay raises that keep them making three times as much as their average constituent who employs them. Even if something of consequence does get passed at the federal level, it still has to spend years filtering down through the states before anything actually happens, at which point it takes one jerk with a J.D. to throw it into the federal circuit courts, appeal to the supreme court, remand back to the circuit etc. etc. etc. to delay any implementation until everyone has conveniently lost interest and forgotten about the issue entirely.
Unfortunately it just is not as simple to effect change in this country as you fantasize that it is, not the least because it was designed explicitly to discourage radical change, unless of course you can blow up a few buildings, kill a few thousand people and whip the entire country into a paranoid frenzy that takes two years to wind out of.
Come on. Businesses folding, mass layoffs, hundreds of thousands of people exhausting their unemployment claims every month, even more filing new ones, interest rates practically at zero. All of these indicate something is seriously wrong. In my own case, in Los Angeles, I did my market and demographic research, "dressed up and showed up." At the chambers of commerce all of my academic conclusions were presented in the flesh: even the civic leaders were looking for distributiors and customers, not contractors and vendors.
Sure, there are opportunities, but even the most prudent of people will realize that burning up reserves with no income is potentially suicidal. Even if you have a relatively huge pile of cash to burn it is still playing with fire and starting a business is, win or lose, an accellerant. You gambled and won with whatever return. For most people -- even educated and experienced people who don't need to be told how wear a tie or interpret leading and trailing economic indicators -- the risk is simply too high at this point.
You ventured into very risky territory and that people are not willing to risk their children starving has nothing to do with them being less intelligent, perceptive or clever than you. They may just have more to lose at the gambling table.
The letter said nothing about Microsoft not wanting consumers to claim, in fact the argument was that consumers are being bilked into purchasing a competitor's product under the presumption that they will be credited back by the class action, which is not true. Running with your argument, the more people "claiming" through this marketing gimmick, the more valid class members Microsoft will not have to pay out, so it would be just as in Microsoft's interest to let all the snake-oil salesmen profit and take back the moral high ground.
Score one for Microsoft in appearing reasonable and minus one for Linux as Lindows removes all ethical credibility.
YEAH! Screw Democracy. If people would just shut up and take what they're given, we'd all be better off. We don't need dialog, we need a good fascist to just take the reins and make it happen. Let them eat Windows.
You could create an Outlook VB script to generate letters of resignation from all the people who will likely recommend your termination for all the other shit you're pulling.
Better yet, you could create one to send various and sundry emails complaining about you being a handicapped jewish black lesbian so you can sue for discrimination when you are invariably fired for being a complete pain in the ass.
Re:I'm not an American...
on
TIA Project to End
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Well, if they could narrow it down to "this guy" or "that gal," they would still have authority under PATRIOT to do damn near anything they want provided with sufficient justification. The problem with TIA was narrowing the net down to 270 million or so people in the hopes of finding something interesting, sort of like scooping up the entire Pacific Ocean in the hopes of finding a sea urchin.
Your final point exemplifies the simplicity of the situtaion: everything being alternately disparaged or glorified amounts to nothing more than a stack of tools and reasonable beings find the best available tools to suit a purpose. These jerks invited wrath by saying quite directly "you are ingorant subhuman morons if you don't want to use our tool for absolutely everything imaginable," which is not exactly the best professional, scientific or academic stance to take if they want anyone to take them seriously or even pay attention to them beyond a casual "piss off," especially if the holy grail of a tool in question is utterly useless for all but a tiny selection of applications and even then the exact architectural bottlenecks they champion themselves as solving become overwhelmingly impaired in the most obvious of cases that even a 15 year old could identify.
...the quasi religious cult sanctimonious denigration crap doesn't do much to convince either, as if storing tabular enterprise data in - GASP - "tables" is such a terrible thing to do indicative of a lower order of being in need of spiritual and philosophical cleansing and release from porridge-feeding in prison. [Question: In SQL] Given a table of employees, and a table of offices, it's very easy to find those employees who don't have offices, and those offices who don't have employees. How can I do this in a consistent manner in Prevayler?
[Their answer:]
Trivial. But how about a query over polimorphically evaluated methods based on the current millisecond?
Talk of "trivial," you can already persist your Java objects into the same store as all your other data and access it either through EJB's, simple entity beans or straight SQL. IMHO, that is a far more useful model than locking everything into a pile of serialized object collections accessible only to a handful of Java gurus who have better things to do than write reams of application logic in order to tell Jim-Bob in accounts payable that he owes the janitor fifty bucks. If it takes less SQL than it would take to write the necessary includes in Java and I can still map everything into Java objects when necessary, why bother giving up 80% of your functionality to get only what is already there? Performance? Please. When the effort of generating a simple report exceeds the price of the CPU, just buy another CPU and save on labor. Besides, after being categorically insulted by these self-satisfied pricks, I wouldn't use their product if it would end hunger and bring about world peace.
Oh I SEE... spends a lot of time hanging around Dupont Circle and Kalorama, frequents decidedly pedestrian restaurants, frequents 17th St, buys mango smoothies at Whole Foods, eats tofu bought in Chinatown, hangs out on in artsy-edgy 14th street clubs and coffeehouses... prefers mexican food and salsa dancing. Rounds tipped bills to the penny. Most importantly, never, EVER, for any reason, leaves Northwest.
Trademark is admittedly a different story. Had they called it the "Dewey Decimal Hotel, LLP" or actually sold copies for an index of their own under that name, I'd be swayed to the "open and shut case" they're harping about. Merely mentioning the name and ostensibly using a public domain version doesn't seem so "open and shut" else Ford would be slammed by Daimler-Chrysler for for repeatedly mentioning the Mercedes mark in their annual reports.
There's an interesting article about the vagueries of establishing trademark infringement damages here:
The business itself (i.e. organizing the rooms) could be considered to be using the original 1870 incarnation, since it is merely organized by the original general categories, which IS in the public domain. The fact that it contains an actual library that may or may not use later editions covered by copyright is potentially a different issue. Remember they have not proceeded with a stitch of discovery so there is no evidence whatsoever at this point, which renders this whole ordeal complete speculation.
...and his proposal to give free computers to the poor.
I remember this township in South Africa that got this big box of computers for their school. Only problem was the electrification project hadn't even begun and there was only one working telephone.
I'm sure at the time they were very disappointed at not having the needed power and DSL line to connect to JenniCam.com, despite not having a proper sewage system, water purification or lights. Maybe they could have run an extension cord to the McDonald's three miles down the street (no joke, how messed up is that?).
As far as I can tell from the OCLC website, it is perfectly permissible to simply by the abridged version, touted as "appropriate for libraries with up to 20,000 titles" for $99. There is no mention of ongoing license fees whatsoever for anything but their on-line products, which clearly wouldn't apply. If that is true, I can't see how any court would award damages equivalent to 300% of profits over three years over a $99 oversight, or even the severe maximum of $1500 bucks. That would be like charging Microsoft a penalty of $15 Billion for not properly registering a couple copies of Adobe Photoshop. The argument that they are infringing trademark by implying connection to their product is silly -- it is still a library as much as any other, none of which claim to be connected to DD by anything other than utility.
Then again, if they're successful, maybe Eolas can recover an additional hundred billion or two in damages. Fair is fair, right?
We're just bringing the wonders of off-shore outsourcing to the entire world because it has done so much to rebuild our own economy.
Fair enough, though, since the British gang-raped Persia in 1908, creating BP (then Anglo-Persian), then quickly invaded Iraq in 1917. World War One ends, Britain takes over Palestine. 1948, Britain gives up Palestine, the new U.N. proceeds to bugger everything up in creating Israel. The U.S. installs the Shah in Iran in 1953, arms shipments follow. Egypt nationalizes the Suez in 1956, much to the annoyance of Britain and France. Israel invades Egypt in 1967, Jordan attacks Israel, Israel attacks Syria, the world scratches its collective head. Iraq nationalizes all of BP's assets in 1972. The next year Iran gives Britain a big raspberry and takes everything too. The same year, Israel shoots down a Libyan passenger airliner because it approached a military reactor, provided largely by the United States' "atoms for peace program," subsequently filled with plutonium enriched from uranium stolen from Britain and through cooperation with West Germany and constructed into usable weapons thanks to cooperation from South Africa and France. The Yom Kippur war begins in 1973 as Egypt and Syria attack Israel. Airlifts and Embargoes against the United States and Britain ensue. Saddam Hussein comes to power in 1979 thanks to the CIA. The Soviets simultaneously and inexplicably commit slow suicide in Afghanistan for no apparent reason other than pride. Meanwhile, the Shah of Iran previously installed by the U.S. falls, arms shipments to Iraq follow as does the Iran-Iraq war. Millions are killed with American weapons.
Britain, having thus lost its entire middle-eastern oil empire, several hundred tons of uranium, not to mention paying a crapload for the oil it used to own, proceeds to swallow Arco and Amoco in the U.S. If they can't have the supplies, they're damn well going to have the distribution and besides, the rest of the world is having all the fun screwing up the middle east and they're just too tired to bother having done it before themselves already.
Meanwhile, Kuwait steals oil from Iraq, Iraq invades Kuwait, the U.S. invades Iraq, causing Iraq to fire back with the weapons shipped from the U.S. not ten years earlier. The Saudis then attack the United States, so the U.S. attacks Afghanistan already a pile of rubble thanks to the Soviets. Certain that Iraq still has the weapons shipped directly from U.S. manufacturers, talk of shooting fish, the U.S. invades Iraq again, oddly enough the Saudis decline to participate and the U.S. does not find anything listed on its invoices.
This leaves the U.S. in an admittedly uncomfortable social situation involving a few million really pissed off Iraqis and the entire world looking rather puzzled. The British, however, are left gaffing Americans in California two-bucks-fifty for gasoline pumped out 90% of the time from their own damned back yards all the while blaming the middle east for high oil prices and scoffing and our bad manners in world affairs.
You know, despite the whole chaos death and destruction part, there's a pretty hearty and healthy laugh to be had by all. But in the end, the Brits are really not the ones who should be crying foul.
Now THAT'S what I call a "fair and balanced" unbiased source of information!
The Heritage Foundation is fundamentally opposed to all things remotely similar to the forms of government found in Northern Europe, so it comes as little surprise that they would rank them lower. "Economic Freedom" in Heritage Foundation parlance effectively means no taxes with the smallest government possible and means not much beyond that. That "Economic Freedom" has absolutely little directly to do with "standard of living" and regardless it is prerequisited by the factors weighted by the HDI. Essentially what HDI says is that you can't open your business or even be a productive employee if you are homeless, starving, uneducated, left for dead or dead at birth. Seems like a reasonable enough suggestion.
The facts remain that the tax cut necesarily went to the rich and that incomes for the top 3-10 percent have risen at more than double the rate of those beneath them. In terms of GDP per capita, Norway, a constitutional monarchy with a democratic socialist government, ranks higher than the United States as well as ranking higher in terms of the HDI. You can dispute the weighting or philosophical value of the HDI factors, but the facts behind them remain. The fact also remains that the ideals you espouse would require the eradication of a great deal of what the United States has developed into and the subsequent creation of something that it has never been.
Republican, Libertarian and Utilitarian political philosophies are all well and good. However, the results of other forms of government and political philosophy are not magically invalidated simply because they are not precisely what you believe in.
Sarcasm is apparently strictly verboten when accompanied by useful information no matter how utterly deserved the beating. Empty wit and l3e+ P1$$iN9 C0Nt3$t$, however, seem to be highly valued here.
Despite the fact that this has been covered in the "major media outlets" ad nauseum for the past five years, did you venture to type this in your browser?
"
President can exercise this authority under section 721 (also known as the "Exon-Florio provision") to block a foreign acquisition of a U.S. corporation only if he finds:
(1) there is credible evidence that the foreign entity exercising control might take action that threatens national security, and
(2) the provisions of law, other than the International Emergency Economic Powers Act do not provide adequate and appropriate authority to protect the national security.
"
"TREASON" has a very specific definition in the Constitution:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
Clearly, despite all his faults, and they are legion, the glorious leader has done nothing wrong in this case.
Maybe because voters have given governments (like Orange County, California) the right to dream up fees on unrelated activities (like speeding) to pay for their own mismanagement and bankruptcies (speeding causes bankruptcy?) or given them the authority to demand that cell-phone companies charge "local infrastructure" fees on their users just because they use a certain area-code and prefix. As an example, Sprint levies a local use fee of about $15 on me payable to the City of Long Beach, California while I live in Washington, DC not using a single atom of Long Beach's infrastructure. This is all the result of voting, be it yours or your rep's, not corporate greed. It should come as no surprise then that companies then charge you for fees resulting from our collective altruism and/or stupidity.
I would actually congratulate Vonage on itemizing it so you can then march into your representative's office and scream at them. If only every silly excise tax were so effectively communicated to consumers, maybe people would be more active in this "democracy."
Slashdot Mirror
I was responding to what they put on their own website, which I have never seen the likes of spewed by any 800-lbs gorilla like Sun or Microsoft. Despite the choice of words, which led many to similar conclusions that these guys are complete assholes, their arguments nonetheless did not convince that their product was useful for any real purpose. With no logical reason to bother with it in the first place, the shitty attitude they chose to communicate with simply provided conviction to a foregone conclusion.
I understand how to come up with a business plan. Part of writing a business plan is market and risk analysis to say nothing of financial planning -- the latter being rather difficult WHEN YOU'RE ALREADY BROKE. I had done such an assessment, which took hundreds of hours of research and a reasonable sum of cold, hard cash. Writing a business plan is not just academically burying in books, public records, statistics and economic indicators, although that is an enormous part of the process, it also involves face-to-face communication with competitors, potential clients and government. It has nothing to do with being a yea or nay-sayer, but everything to do with making studied, methodical decisions supported as much as possible by facts and sound reasoning.
That analysis often leads people and businesses alike to move where conditions are more attractive or simply build reserves and wait for conditions to improve, possibly taking the time to fine-tune the business plan or throw it out entirely. Of course, a few martyrs are required to get the economy going lest it remain stuck with huge amounts of potential energy and no momentum.
All that said, there is a large logical leap from business and economics into questionable ethical philosophy when people assume that there is some character flaw in choosing to NOT risk financial suicide instead of considering those who refrain from jumping into a business venture head first may simply be choosing and timing their battles wisely instead of waging a commercial Gallipoli.
The entire purpose of a "cease and desist" letter is to keep things out of court and establish willfulness should they end up in court. You have the option of ignoring it and calling a potential bluff or playing nice and saving everyone a lot of time and money.
There is nothing unusual here. Why everytime Microsoft farts everyone runs screaming claiming it is an alien practice never seen before on earth continues to amaze me.
Basically, they are running a sweepstakes and a modified version of the "mail-in rebate," which is exactly the tactic Microsoft is, IMHO, legitimately arguing against.
Yes, I bothered to read the site, the article and the letter. Had you bothered to read and comprehend my statement you'd realize that yours changes nothing about mine.
PATRIOT unfortunately got pushed through when everyone, certainly those in congress, was suffering from acute post traumatic stress syndrome, something you hear many of them grumbling about in Washington on a daily basis.
That said, there is absolutely ZERO direct relationship between citizen and federal government in terms of legislation. NONE.
Sure, it sounds great, but if eighty million people -- more than three times the population of Canada -- wanted something done under this system, it is highly likely they wouldn't stand a chance of getting it. Say the entire country objected to how much we pay our legislators, what direct-democracy mechanism would you recommend we use to change that? The coersion of "we won't re-elect half of you next time around" is not direct-democracy and also presents pretty decent odds for incumbants to perpetually blame the losing 50% and vote in pay raises that keep them making three times as much as their average constituent who employs them. Even if something of consequence does get passed at the federal level, it still has to spend years filtering down through the states before anything actually happens, at which point it takes one jerk with a J.D. to throw it into the federal circuit courts, appeal to the supreme court, remand back to the circuit etc. etc. etc. to delay any implementation until everyone has conveniently lost interest and forgotten about the issue entirely.
Unfortunately it just is not as simple to effect change in this country as you fantasize that it is, not the least because it was designed explicitly to discourage radical change, unless of course you can blow up a few buildings, kill a few thousand people and whip the entire country into a paranoid frenzy that takes two years to wind out of.
Come on. Businesses folding, mass layoffs, hundreds of thousands of people exhausting their unemployment claims every month, even more filing new ones, interest rates practically at zero. All of these indicate something is seriously wrong. In my own case, in Los Angeles, I did my market and demographic research, "dressed up and showed up." At the chambers of commerce all of my academic conclusions were presented in the flesh: even the civic leaders were looking for distributiors and customers, not contractors and vendors.
Sure, there are opportunities, but even the most prudent of people will realize that burning up reserves with no income is potentially suicidal. Even if you have a relatively huge pile of cash to burn it is still playing with fire and starting a business is, win or lose, an accellerant. You gambled and won with whatever return. For most people -- even educated and experienced people who don't need to be told how wear a tie or interpret leading and trailing economic indicators -- the risk is simply too high at this point.
You ventured into very risky territory and that people are not willing to risk their children starving has nothing to do with them being less intelligent, perceptive or clever than you. They may just have more to lose at the gambling table.
The letter said nothing about Microsoft not wanting consumers to claim, in fact the argument was that consumers are being bilked into purchasing a competitor's product under the presumption that they will be credited back by the class action, which is not true. Running with your argument, the more people "claiming" through this marketing gimmick, the more valid class members Microsoft will not have to pay out, so it would be just as in Microsoft's interest to let all the snake-oil salesmen profit and take back the moral high ground.
Score one for Microsoft in appearing reasonable and minus one for Linux as Lindows removes all ethical credibility.
Sigh. What jerks.
YEAH! Screw Democracy. If people would just shut up and take what they're given, we'd all be better off. We don't need dialog, we need a good fascist to just take the reins and make it happen. Let them eat Windows.
You could create an Outlook VB script to generate letters of resignation from all the people who will likely recommend your termination for all the other shit you're pulling.
Better yet, you could create one to send various and sundry emails complaining about you being a handicapped jewish black lesbian so you can sue for discrimination when you are invariably fired for being a complete pain in the ass.
Well, if they could narrow it down to "this guy" or "that gal," they would still have authority under PATRIOT to do damn near anything they want provided with sufficient justification. The problem with TIA was narrowing the net down to 270 million or so people in the hopes of finding something interesting, sort of like scooping up the entire Pacific Ocean in the hopes of finding a sea urchin.
No, it is a very simple situation.
Your final point exemplifies the simplicity of the situtaion: everything being alternately disparaged or glorified amounts to nothing more than a stack of tools and reasonable beings find the best available tools to suit a purpose. These jerks invited wrath by saying quite directly "you are ingorant subhuman morons if you don't want to use our tool for absolutely everything imaginable," which is not exactly the best professional, scientific or academic stance to take if they want anyone to take them seriously or even pay attention to them beyond a casual "piss off," especially if the holy grail of a tool in question is utterly useless for all but a tiny selection of applications and even then the exact architectural bottlenecks they champion themselves as solving become overwhelmingly impaired in the most obvious of cases that even a 15 year old could identify.
...the quasi religious cult sanctimonious denigration crap doesn't do much to convince either, as if storing tabular enterprise data in - GASP - "tables" is such a terrible thing to do indicative of a lower order of being in need of spiritual and philosophical cleansing and release from porridge-feeding in prison.
[Question: In SQL] Given a table of employees, and a table of offices, it's very easy to find those employees who don't have offices, and those offices who don't have employees. How can I do this in a consistent manner in Prevayler?
[Their answer:]
Trivial. But how about a query over polimorphically evaluated methods based on the current millisecond?
Talk of "trivial," you can already persist your Java objects into the same store as all your other data and access it either through EJB's, simple entity beans or straight SQL. IMHO, that is a far more useful model than locking everything into a pile of serialized object collections accessible only to a handful of Java gurus who have better things to do than write reams of application logic in order to tell Jim-Bob in accounts payable that he owes the janitor fifty bucks. If it takes less SQL than it would take to write the necessary includes in Java and I can still map everything into Java objects when necessary, why bother giving up 80% of your functionality to get only what is already there? Performance? Please. When the effort of generating a simple report exceeds the price of the CPU, just buy another CPU and save on labor. Besides, after being categorically insulted by these self-satisfied pricks, I wouldn't use their product if it would end hunger and bring about world peace.
Yay, Eddie's Lexan and Kevlar Diner has the best midnight cheesesteak.
And every time you masturbate, god kills a kitten.
Oh I SEE... spends a lot of time hanging around Dupont Circle and Kalorama, frequents decidedly pedestrian restaurants, frequents 17th St, buys mango smoothies at Whole Foods, eats tofu bought in Chinatown, hangs out on in artsy-edgy 14th street clubs and coffeehouses... prefers mexican food and salsa dancing. Rounds tipped bills to the penny. Most importantly, never, EVER, for any reason, leaves Northwest.
Houston, we have a profile.
The original 1870 work, minus title, is wholly and unambiguously in the public domain. That much is certain.
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ22.html#public
Trademark is admittedly a different story. Had they called it the "Dewey Decimal Hotel, LLP" or actually sold copies for an index of their own under that name, I'd be swayed to the "open and shut case" they're harping about. Merely mentioning the name and ostensibly using a public domain version doesn't seem so "open and shut" else Ford would be slammed by Daimler-Chrysler for for repeatedly mentioning the Mercedes mark in their annual reports.
There's an interesting article about the vagueries of establishing trademark infringement damages here:
http://techlawadvisor.com/wires/ip.html/a.
The business itself (i.e. organizing the rooms) could be considered to be using the original 1870 incarnation, since it is merely organized by the original general categories, which IS in the public domain. The fact that it contains an actual library that may or may not use later editions covered by copyright is potentially a different issue. Remember they have not proceeded with a stitch of discovery so there is no evidence whatsoever at this point, which renders this whole ordeal complete speculation.
...and his proposal to give free computers to the poor.
I remember this township in South Africa that got this big box of computers for their school. Only problem was the electrification project hadn't even begun and there was only one working telephone.
I'm sure at the time they were very disappointed at not having the needed power and DSL line to connect to JenniCam.com, despite not having a proper sewage system, water purification or lights. Maybe they could have run an extension cord to the McDonald's three miles down the street (no joke, how messed up is that?).
As far as I can tell from the OCLC website, it is perfectly permissible to simply by the abridged version, touted as "appropriate for libraries with up to 20,000 titles" for $99. There is no mention of ongoing license fees whatsoever for anything but their on-line products, which clearly wouldn't apply. If that is true, I can't see how any court would award damages equivalent to 300% of profits over three years over a $99 oversight, or even the severe maximum of $1500 bucks. That would be like charging Microsoft a penalty of $15 Billion for not properly registering a couple copies of Adobe Photoshop. The argument that they are infringing trademark by implying connection to their product is silly -- it is still a library as much as any other, none of which claim to be connected to DD by anything other than utility.
Then again, if they're successful, maybe Eolas can recover an additional hundred billion or two in damages. Fair is fair, right?
We're just bringing the wonders of off-shore outsourcing to the entire world because it has done so much to rebuild our own economy.
Fair enough, though, since the British gang-raped Persia in 1908, creating BP (then Anglo-Persian), then quickly invaded Iraq in 1917. World War One ends, Britain takes over Palestine. 1948, Britain gives up Palestine, the new U.N. proceeds to bugger everything up in creating Israel. The U.S. installs the Shah in Iran in 1953, arms shipments follow. Egypt nationalizes the Suez in 1956, much to the annoyance of Britain and France. Israel invades Egypt in 1967, Jordan attacks Israel, Israel attacks Syria, the world scratches its collective head. Iraq nationalizes all of BP's assets in 1972. The next year Iran gives Britain a big raspberry and takes everything too. The same year, Israel shoots down a Libyan passenger airliner because it approached a military reactor, provided largely by the United States' "atoms for peace program," subsequently filled with plutonium enriched from uranium stolen from Britain and through cooperation with West Germany and constructed into usable weapons thanks to cooperation from South Africa and France. The Yom Kippur war begins in 1973 as Egypt and Syria attack Israel. Airlifts and Embargoes against the United States and Britain ensue. Saddam Hussein comes to power in 1979 thanks to the CIA. The Soviets simultaneously and inexplicably commit slow suicide in Afghanistan for no apparent reason other than pride. Meanwhile, the Shah of Iran previously installed by the U.S. falls, arms shipments to Iraq follow as does the Iran-Iraq war. Millions are killed with American weapons.
Britain, having thus lost its entire middle-eastern oil empire, several hundred tons of uranium, not to mention paying a crapload for the oil it used to own, proceeds to swallow Arco and Amoco in the U.S. If they can't have the supplies, they're damn well going to have the distribution and besides, the rest of the world is having all the fun screwing up the middle east and they're just too tired to bother having done it before themselves already.
Meanwhile, Kuwait steals oil from Iraq, Iraq invades Kuwait, the U.S. invades Iraq, causing Iraq to fire back with the weapons shipped from the U.S. not ten years earlier. The Saudis then attack the United States, so the U.S. attacks Afghanistan already a pile of rubble thanks to the Soviets. Certain that Iraq still has the weapons shipped directly from U.S. manufacturers, talk of shooting fish, the U.S. invades Iraq again, oddly enough the Saudis decline to participate and the U.S. does not find anything listed on its invoices.
This leaves the U.S. in an admittedly uncomfortable social situation involving a few million really pissed off Iraqis and the entire world looking rather puzzled. The British, however, are left gaffing Americans in California two-bucks-fifty for gasoline pumped out 90% of the time from their own damned back yards all the while blaming the middle east for high oil prices and scoffing and our bad manners in world affairs.
You know, despite the whole chaos death and destruction part, there's a pretty hearty and healthy laugh to be had by all. But in the end, the Brits are really not the ones who should be crying foul.
Now THAT'S what I call a "fair and balanced" unbiased source of information!
The Heritage Foundation is fundamentally opposed to all things remotely similar to the forms of government found in Northern Europe, so it comes as little surprise that they would rank them lower. "Economic Freedom" in Heritage Foundation parlance effectively means no taxes with the smallest government possible and means not much beyond that. That "Economic Freedom" has absolutely little directly to do with "standard of living" and regardless it is prerequisited by the factors weighted by the HDI. Essentially what HDI says is that you can't open your business or even be a productive employee if you are homeless, starving, uneducated, left for dead or dead at birth. Seems like a reasonable enough suggestion.
The facts remain that the tax cut necesarily went to the rich and that incomes for the top 3-10 percent have risen at more than double the rate of those beneath them. In terms of GDP per capita, Norway, a constitutional monarchy with a democratic socialist government, ranks higher than the United States as well as ranking higher in terms of the HDI. You can dispute the weighting or philosophical value of the HDI factors, but the facts behind them remain. The fact also remains that the ideals you espouse would require the eradication of a great deal of what the United States has developed into and the subsequent creation of something that it has never been.
Republican, Libertarian and Utilitarian political philosophies are all well and good. However, the results of other forms of government and political philosophy are not magically invalidated simply because they are not precisely what you believe in.
Sarcasm is apparently strictly verboten when accompanied by useful information no matter how utterly deserved the beating. Empty wit and l3e+ P1$$iN9 C0Nt3$t$, however, seem to be highly valued here.
Despite the fact that this has been covered in the "major media outlets" ad nauseum for the past five years, did you venture to type this in your browser?
o bal+crossing&btnG=Search+News
1 .000/hba78601_0.HTM
http://www.globalcrossing.com/
Or, maybe:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&q=gl
For the truly adventurous, there is the text from the house oversight and investigation committee, regarding the effects of the GC bankruptcy:
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/bank/hba7860
Inter alia, note the use of the words "ONLY IF",
i rs/exon-florio/
" President can exercise this authority under section 721 (also known as the "Exon-Florio provision") to block a foreign acquisition of a U.S. corporation only if he finds:
(1) there is credible evidence that the foreign entity exercising control might take action that threatens national security, and
(2) the provisions of law, other than the International Emergency Economic Powers Act do not provide adequate and appropriate authority to protect the national security. "
http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/international-affa
"TREASON" has a very specific definition in the Constitution:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
Clearly, despite all his faults, and they are legion, the glorious leader has done nothing wrong in this case.
Maybe because voters have given governments (like Orange County, California) the right to dream up fees on unrelated activities (like speeding) to pay for their own mismanagement and bankruptcies (speeding causes bankruptcy?) or given them the authority to demand that cell-phone companies charge "local infrastructure" fees on their users just because they use a certain area-code and prefix. As an example, Sprint levies a local use fee of about $15 on me payable to the City of Long Beach, California while I live in Washington, DC not using a single atom of Long Beach's infrastructure. This is all the result of voting, be it yours or your rep's, not corporate greed. It should come as no surprise then that companies then charge you for fees resulting from our collective altruism and/or stupidity.
I would actually congratulate Vonage on itemizing it so you can then march into your representative's office and scream at them. If only every silly excise tax were so effectively communicated to consumers, maybe people would be more active in this "democracy."