Somebody making 2, 3 dollars a day (I'm looking at YOU, Pakistan!!) can't afford to pay American rates for content.
And yet working Americans are supposed to compete with those people making 2, 3 dollars a day for jobs that can be outsourced of offshored. Funny how "globalization" is always a one-way street, though.
Did you catch the "you first" part? Where's the ethics in forcing consumers across the planet to adopt increasingly absurd, corporate-written copyright laws while enforcing regional pricing at the same time?
It's information like this that inclines me to launch grass roots efforts to boycott various content providers...
Which of course is about as effective as boycotting banks that charge NSF fees a the drop of a hat, or airlines charging luggage fees.....when they all do it outside of some holdouts like Southwest. Barring the creation of a World War Z hive mind, consumer boycotts will do nothing to change widespread corporate behavior, no matter what the Libertarian Loons would have you believe.
The USA is a very fine thing (better than Rome is so many ways) but a historian will look back at all the egotistical comparisons to Rome and laugh - it's just too different.
The point of making comparisons is to compare similar traits or actions between A and B, not to say A is the same thing as B. For example, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are both corporate Democrats that have supported sea changes in policy written by lobbyists (NAFTA, Obomneycare) and support eroding the safety net (welfare, Social Security).
Your great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson would look at that and "laugh" because Barack and Bill have different skin tones.
This is free trade: part of free trade is that the seller is allowed to choose who to sell to. Free trade agreements are agreements between governments, to not put any restrictions on the trade by businesses.
That's quite the apologia, but it does nothing to change the fact that Corporate Trade laws (lets stop calling them Free) aren't all about benefiting the giant monied interests that paid for them at the expense of the proles.
If the working stiff in the States is forced to compete with a sweatshop worker making a couple of bucks an hour in an Asian sweatshop, the least the government can do is give the poor bastard access to third world prices at the same time.
Not when elected Democrats are to the right of Republican voters on most issues. Republican voters don't want bank bailouts, their Medicare or SS cut, nor did they want the NDAA or telecom immunity. Hell, they "evolved" on ending DADT before Obama did.
Because he was a right-wing president. Same reason he muscled through the free trade, deregulation, and gutting of welfare that Reagan-Bush never could.
In Bush v Gore, the court declined to force a state to hand-pick different voting standards for different precincts
False. There was only one standard: determine the intent of the voter. Pretending otherwise because Florida had wildly different methods of voting (opscan/punch cards/butterfly) is to be willfully obtuse.
Are you of the opinion that the Gore campaign must be allowed to tailor the rules not just on a county a by a county basis, but also precinct a by precinct?
Irrelevant. You do know that it was the state of Florida conducting the recount and not Gore's campaign, right? Besides, if were in the 'ZOMG we need to wrap this up' crowd, Gores proposal made the most "sense" as it went to the counties with the highest amount of errors (punch cards) instead of the ones with the most reliable systems (opscan).
One of Gore's team released a complete analysis two years layer, giving details of "why Gore should have won". To get there, he had to argue that hanging chads SHOULD count in precinct 3 (which leaned Democrat) but should NOT count in precinct 1 (which leaned Republican). You don't even have to read Florida's arguments in that case; Gore's arguments are ridiculous prima facial, insisting on having inconsistent rules from polling place to polling place.
Prima face hand waving. A press recount showed Gore winning a state-wide recount under any scenario. Which means a deeply corrupt Supreme Court (Scalia and Thomas should have recused themselves due to relatives working for the Bush campaign, and O'Connor openly whined about retiring under a GOP president) finished the job Katherine Harris did in stealing the 2000 election. Period.
that at some point in the past mankind was somehow in sync with their environment, and their diet at that point was perfectly aligned with their nutritional needs.
When was this "perfection" alleged, exactly? The idea behind Paleo and other low-carb diets (Atkins, Mediterranean) is that humans evolved as hunter/gatherer/herders, not consumers of processed carbs/starches.
For the.005% of the population buying certain models of Mercedes, which did jack for the 99.995% of the driving public that did not have those vehicles. Don't be willfully obtuse.
What are you talking about? No one forced you to slam your brakes on at the last second.
No one but the state that can send you a ticket for $300. Which, for a wage-slave, could easily be the difference between having a roof over your head or moving into the backseat of your car.
Never ran a red light where it wasn't my own fault.
Then you've never frequently driven an intersection that had it's yellow light time shortened by a couple of seconds to increase the number of tickets handed out. That, or you drive like old people fuck.
Ordinarily the left-of-centers around here have no trouble making the connection between higher government revenue and greater public safety.
...for starving states and cities of revenue so they look to sin taxes (moving violations, pot busts) to make up the difference. Because 1) civilization costs money and 2) low taxes have high costs.
All they're doing in Chicago is providing themselves the means to fund their Government [1] by punishing law breakers
You mean what "tough on crime" right-of-center wankers have been demanding for decades? You jokers like to whine about big buggmit, but you find yourselves slipping into a brisk goosestep when it comes to all things authoritarian.
Anyhow Chicago, enjoy your statist hell. You deserve it.
Just how divorced from reality are you? Declaring war on public schools and selling off metered parking to a private company (that promptly jacked up rates) is a sign that Chicago is in a socialist hell on what planet???
Being a self-righteous wanker might give you warm fuzzies, but it does nothing to change the fact that a system that encourages drivers to suddenly stand on their breaks is a shitty system. One that has been proven to cause more rear-end collisions, your self-righteous wankery notwithstanding.
Nope, the tailgater is always wrong, without exception
Nope, that's conflating "unable to come to a complete stop if the driver in front stands on his brakes for some BS reason" with tailgating. As someone said upthread, getting all self-righteous at other drivers might give you warm fuzzies, but it doesn't change the fact that shitty traffic engineering is shitty traffic engineering.
When you can get the criminals to do the same, I'll agree with you.
When the Feds stop charging people for lying to federal investigators, I'll agree with you. Either both citizens and officials are allowed to be dishonest - outside of being under oath in a court of law - or neither one is.
I guess even people who are supportive of abortion (but not supportive of late term abortions) will defend late term abortions simply because
Simply because no one gets a dilatation and extraction for shits and giggles.
because they fear that making them illegal will affect conventional abortion
It has been the standard operating procedure ever since Roe v Wade: chip away at abortion without passing an Ireland-style ban. Because shit happens when medical decisions are made by religious fanatics rather than doctors.
There's no comparison between college students and wage slaves downloading from TPB and conglomerates like Disney or Sony, who between them have the better part of $200 billion in market capitalization.
Here you go. An entire list of responses to climate denialists. Now you have a reference so you wont sound just like a paid-off concern trolling douche who needs to go fuck himself.
The American Taliban, who will prosecute women for miscarriages between conception and birth, after which the newborn can go fuck herself. And during the pregnancy, the mother and the fetus can go fuck themselves as well if they need health care.
People would still use AdBlock if ads were unobtrusive and static.
Hardly. If people weren't annoyed, they wouldn't have been motivated enough to download Adblock/NoScript/host files that hard code doubleclick.net to 127.0.0.1.
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And yet working Americans are supposed to compete with those people making 2, 3 dollars a day for jobs that can be outsourced of offshored. Funny how "globalization" is always a one-way street, though.
Did you catch the "you first" part? Where's the ethics in forcing consumers across the planet to adopt increasingly absurd, corporate-written copyright laws while enforcing regional pricing at the same time?
Which of course is about as effective as boycotting banks that charge NSF fees a the drop of a hat, or airlines charging luggage fees.....when they all do it outside of some holdouts like Southwest. Barring the creation of a World War Z hive mind, consumer boycotts will do nothing to change widespread corporate behavior, no matter what the Libertarian Loons would have you believe.
The point of making comparisons is to compare similar traits or actions between A and B, not to say A is the same thing as B. For example, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are both corporate Democrats that have supported sea changes in policy written by lobbyists (NAFTA, Obomneycare) and support eroding the safety net (welfare, Social Security).
Your great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson would look at that and "laugh" because Barack and Bill have different skin tones.
That's quite the apologia, but it does nothing to change the fact that Corporate Trade laws (lets stop calling them Free) aren't all about benefiting the giant monied interests that paid for them at the expense of the proles.
If the working stiff in the States is forced to compete with a sweatshop worker making a couple of bucks an hour in an Asian sweatshop, the least the government can do is give the poor bastard access to third world prices at the same time.
Not when elected Democrats are to the right of Republican voters on most issues. Republican voters don't want bank bailouts, their Medicare or SS cut, nor did they want the NDAA or telecom immunity. Hell, they "evolved" on ending DADT before Obama did.
Because he was a right-wing president. Same reason he muscled through the free trade, deregulation, and gutting of welfare that Reagan-Bush never could.
Zombie winger lies:
False. There was only one standard: determine the intent of the voter. Pretending otherwise because Florida had wildly different methods of voting (opscan/punch cards/butterfly) is to be willfully obtuse.
Irrelevant. You do know that it was the state of Florida conducting the recount and not Gore's campaign, right? Besides, if were in the 'ZOMG we need to wrap this up' crowd, Gores proposal made the most "sense" as it went to the counties with the highest amount of errors (punch cards) instead of the ones with the most reliable systems (opscan).
Prima face hand waving. A press recount showed Gore winning a state-wide recount under any scenario. Which means a deeply corrupt Supreme Court (Scalia and Thomas should have recused themselves due to relatives working for the Bush campaign, and O'Connor openly whined about retiring under a GOP president) finished the job Katherine Harris did in stealing the 2000 election. Period.
When was this "perfection" alleged, exactly? The idea behind Paleo and other low-carb diets (Atkins, Mediterranean) is that humans evolved as hunter/gatherer/herders, not consumers of processed carbs/starches.
Your batshit insane religious fanaticism is showing again.
Because you're being willfully obtuse.
For the .005% of the population buying certain models of Mercedes, which did jack for the 99.995% of the driving public that did not have those vehicles. Don't be willfully obtuse.
No one but the state that can send you a ticket for $300. Which, for a wage-slave, could easily be the difference between having a roof over your head or moving into the backseat of your car.
Then you've never frequently driven an intersection that had it's yellow light time shortened by a couple of seconds to increase the number of tickets handed out. That, or you drive like old people fuck.
You mean what "tough on crime" right-of-center wankers have been demanding for decades? You jokers like to whine about big buggmit, but you find yourselves slipping into a brisk goosestep when it comes to all things authoritarian.
Just how divorced from reality are you? Declaring war on public schools and selling off metered parking to a private company (that promptly jacked up rates) is a sign that Chicago is in a socialist hell on what planet???
Being a self-righteous wanker might give you warm fuzzies, but it does nothing to change the fact that a system that encourages drivers to suddenly stand on their breaks is a shitty system. One that has been proven to cause more rear-end collisions, your self-righteous wankery notwithstanding.
Nope, that's conflating "unable to come to a complete stop if the driver in front stands on his brakes for some BS reason" with tailgating. As someone said upthread, getting all self-righteous at other drivers might give you warm fuzzies, but it doesn't change the fact that shitty traffic engineering is shitty traffic engineering.
When the Feds stop charging people for lying to federal investigators, I'll agree with you. Either both citizens and officials are allowed to be dishonest - outside of being under oath in a court of law - or neither one is.
Sounds like you're willfully blind by insisting that mountains and molehills are the same thing. Sense of proportion: get one.
Simply because no one gets a dilatation and extraction for shits and giggles.
It has been the standard operating procedure ever since Roe v Wade: chip away at abortion without passing an Ireland-style ban. Because shit happens when medical decisions are made by religious fanatics rather than doctors.
There's no comparison between college students and wage slaves downloading from TPB and conglomerates like Disney or Sony, who between them have the better part of $200 billion in market capitalization.
Here you go. An entire list of responses to climate denialists. Now you have a reference so you wont sound just like a paid-off concern trolling douche who needs to go fuck himself.
Maybe have a remotely relevant response?
The American Taliban, who will prosecute women for miscarriages between conception and birth, after which the newborn can go fuck herself. And during the pregnancy, the mother and the fetus can go fuck themselves as well if they need health care.
Hardly. If people weren't annoyed, they wouldn't have been motivated enough to download Adblock/NoScript/host files that hard code doubleclick.net to 127.0.0.1.