Three perps jump a victim (perhaps intending only to rob them) and kill them - one victim, three murderers.
An armed gang carries out a robbery, in the course of which someone is shot dead - all of the gang, I believe (although I dare say that exactly how this is handled varies from country to country) can be charged with the murder.
But in the case of Spamhaus, what the small print actually says is "the shop supplying the hammers will decide whether you have acted in the proscribed manner. There is no right of appeal. The first time you will know that you are even under investigation is when you get hit. The only way of stopping the beating is to acknowledge that you were acting in the proscribed manner, and to stop doing so. The hammer shop is always right. You are always wrong. Have a nice day".
There's a huge reservoir of goodwill towards Spamhaus because they're fighting the good fight; but every time I read anything on Slashdot about their behaviour, their position seems to be that they should be insulated from any kind of accountability simply because they're on the side of the angels. Let's just admit that it's possible that they are wrong sometimes (or at least that they could be in the future, if you're too much of a fanboy to accept that they ever have been to date); that their being wrong has (would have) real consequences for innocent parties; and that they don't seem to have adequate mechanisms for dealing with that possibility. A touch more humility about their own flawlessness might also have prevented them from making what appears to have been a royal screw-up of their defence in this particular case.
As a matter of interest, do you also believe that European galleries and museums should give the families of holocaust victims the brush-off with regard to the ownership of art looted by the Nazis, on the basis that "it belonged to their grandfathers, that's all"?
The USA joined the war against Germany (in a formal sense, as opposed to the de facto involvement in the Battle of the Atlantic) because Hitler declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941.
Even the "Germany First" strategy was aimed more at preventing German hegemony in Europe than it was against Russia.
Well, the first sentence of TFA begins: "A Spanish intellectual property law has finally banned unauthorized peer-to-peer file-sharing in Spain", so I imagine that they're going to resolve it by those individuals not taking themselves to court for violating their own copyrights.
Still, the time you saved by not reading that was rewarded by your "insightful" mods from a couple of slashbots, so that's a result, eh?
I suppose that the GP's reference to incest could be taken to imply "blood relatives only", but I took "family" to include the current partners and at least some of the "other intimates". The broader point which I was trying to convey was that the principal danger is "people who are probably already known to the victim" rather than strangers. The "dates" group could, of course, fall into either category.
It certainly seems to be the case in the UK. This research document, produced for the Home Office (the government department responsible for crime policy) in 2002 concludes that strangers were one of the least likely groups to commit rape (chapter 5, particularly figure 5.1).
There are obvious issues about data collection and definition (which are acknowledged and addressed in the report, but spread across too many places to really note in a message board posting - you'll have to skim the whole 132 pages for yourself!), particularly given the nature of the offence and the fact that the British Crime Survey is a self-complete questionnaire; but the BCS is generally held to be the most authoritative of the several different statistical measures of crime in the UK.
While it is well to the right, it's in the mainstream, as opposed to some quasi-fascist rag. The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday are not in the same league as the "Qualities": The Times, Financial Times, Guardian, Telegraph and Independent, but they're much more serious than the "Red Tops" like the Sun and the Star.
The Mail newspapers are very strong on championing the rights of "normal, decent people", which (as you'd expect) is a self-selecting group. Many non-Mail readers (even those who are on the right themselves) see the archetypal Mail reader as the kind of person who thinks that it's all been downhill since the mid-1950s. They don't like gays, feminists or immigrants very much. They really don't like laws which give special treatment to (read: seek to protect against discrimination) any minority group.
To be honest, the Mail isn't the first name that would spring to mind if someone told you that a British newspaper was running an article on the wickedness of sweatshop labour.
"A class act would forgive the customers and offer to either release them from the agreement or offer them a chance to change the terms to something that won't cost them money"
Alternatively, you could argue that a class act would stop bleating about how his "can't miss" money-making proposition didn't work out the way he'd hoped and pony up the cash that he'd freely agreed to pay.
Just a thought. I don't really care one way or the other, but it would be nice to see someone standing up for the notion of personal responsibility.
Nor does it imply the absence of causation, which is the unspoken subtext behind the "correlation != causation" posts which invariably spring up whenever this subject surfaces. What correlation undoubtedly does do, unless you have a total lack of curiosity about the nature of the world, is to suggest interesting avenues of research. That's why the subject comes up repeatedly, and why it will continue to do so.
Obviously, though, taking all that into account would have taken far too long to allow much chance of getting first post.
That's amazing, because I had the radio on in my car this morning; and I'm about to go home now and I'll have the radio on again; and no-one has mentioned this "newly classified tax" to me at all.
So I'm guessing that you're talking out of your backside.
The article gives no basis whatsoever on which to make a judgement one way or the other about whether there was evidence. The fact that he lost the case suggests that there might have been some, after all.
Then again, he says that there wasn't and I'm sure that he's a completely unbiased observer, so that's that settled.
Make that "copyrighted". Sorry. Every crappy message board in the world has an "edit" function, except the one run by the uber-geek technomeisters. Go figure...
Thanks for posting that link. Although I'm from the UK, I've been a big baseball fan for many years (since I had a job in a book warehouse used by Simon and Schuster's UK distributors: I spent my lunch breaks sitting in the racking reading the stock, that's where I first discovered Roger Angell and Tom Boswell).
I've bookmarked that site for future reference. Whoever thought I'd ever learn anything useful from Slashdot?
No, actually he's right, at least inasmuch as that the football authorities claim that the fixtures are copyright. The Guardian link (provided earlier by another poster) is quite informative on the background, which goes back to 1959.
The claim is presumably based on the principle that the fixtures are "created" and therefore subject to copyright. If you accept that, then why should other companies be able to profit from that act of creation without recognising the rights of the creators? I imagine that this would be particularly persuasive in the case of a pools company like Littlewoods, whose entire business model was based on the football fixtures list, yet didn't really put anything back into the game at all (at least not on a corporate level: in fact, members of the Moores family, who own Littlewoods, have been involved in the ownership of both Liverpool and Everton football clubs - Everton are the other big football club in Liverpool, for the benefit of non-UK readers - at various times).
Of course, the contrary point of view would be that compiling a fixture list is simply a cost of doing business for the football industry at large, and that any publication of fixture dates is a form of publicity for which the game should be grateful. This, however, would be inconsistent with the prevailing attitude in football, which is wring every last penny out of anyone they can by whatever means are available.
It may be that the status quo only holds up because no-one has challenged the 1959 case. After all, the sort of media outlet which publishes the entire fixture list for every club (i.e. national newspapers, football magazines and websites etc.) probably regards £6000 (the figure mentioned in the Guardian) as small potatoes compared to the aggravation of going to court. Legal action only ever seems to be threatened against these one-man-and-a-dog sort of operations.
The key difference between the situation here and what MLB is trying to do, though, is that baseball stats are matters of historical fact. Barry Bonds either did or did not hit 73 homers. Kerry Wood did or did not fan 20 Astros in a game. I don't see how that can be "owned".
The reason that there is an official distinction between biscuits and cakes (or, strictly speaking, a distinction which underpins a tax liability ruling) is that cakes are zero-rated for VAT, whereas chocolate biscuits are standard rated (currently 17.5% in the UK, although I think that the Jaffa Cake case first came up when the rate was 15%).
McVities, the manufacturer, successfully argued at a VAT Tribunal that Jaffa Cakes were cakes (and yes, the "goes soggy" / "goes hard" distinction was a key factor in their victory) and not, as HM Customs & Excise claimed, biscuits partially covered in chocolate.
As a sop to the topic, I would think that we could all agree with the Kansas school board people that Jaffa Cakes are definitely the result of Intelligent Design.
Either that or you're some kind of uber-drama queen.
"I now feel unsafe at expressing my discontent at the blairite regime"
If you were paying attention, you'd have noticed that lots of people have voiced their discontent about recent proposed anti-terrorist legislation. They don't seem to feel unsafe doing it. I don't feel unsafe doing it (and I work for the Government). I doubt that there's anything special about you that means that you should feel unsafe doing it, either.
Specifically, what do you think the guys in Mexico City, Ciudad Juarez, Guadalajara, Hermosillo, Matamoros, Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo, Puerto Vallarta and Tijuana are getting paid for? Only Russia plays host to as many US consulates.
This whole story seems strange to me. Believe me: after 9.00 pm, just about anything goes on British TV (at least as far as swearing is concerned). Very occasionally there's a "moral panic" stirred up by some newspaper or interest group, but generally it's pretty much a free-for-all, as anyone who watched "Springer: the Musical" could testify.
This is a common misconception on slashdot. It surfaces in just about every discussion concerning speed cameras, traffic signal cameras, radar guns etc. The black box is not the accuser. The accuser is some functionary; the black box record/reading/whatever is evidence.
So the scenario is not "I was accused by (e.g.) the speed camera", but "I was accused by [name of minor civic dignitary responsible for this sort of thing]". You can confront him (or her) and ask "on what grounds do you claim that I was speeding/drunk etc." and they will respond that they have the reading from their machine as evidence. The evidential value of the reading is still up for discussion or dispute, but you're not being accused by the machine itself.
FWIW (and IANAL), I suspect that in the UK, at least, you could challenge the accuracy of the machine (in fact, it's been done successfully with some radar guns, at least) but I think that your chances of having the machine pulled apart to demonstrate that every last component worked would be pretty low. I think it would be enough for the prosecution to show that (i) the machine was accurate when properly calibrated; and (ii) it had been properly maintained, calibrated and tested.
There's nothing wrong with holding the view that Germany and France (and the several other European countries which, I believe, have similar laws)shouldn't restrict the depiction of Nazi emblems etc.
I often despair at the way it's expressed, though. There's something distasteful about slashdotters who happily argue that copyright law enforcement is a savage assault on their human rights sounding off about another nation's response to a national trauma which makes anything they're likely to experience in their entire lives look utterly insignificant by comparison.
As comforting a thought as it is that "they" (politicians) are messing it up for "us" (nice cuddly real people), it looks like the truth is less edifying.
Anybody with half a brain can understand why non-US politicians are uneasy about the US being in a position to exert overwhelming influence on the internet (and whether they have ever actually used that influence in the past is totally irrelevant: it clearly exists). Equally, anyone should be able to see why US politicians don't want to relinquish that influence - and it's got nothing to do with any moral principle about who paid for it, or anything like that. So both parties have a legitimate interest there.
Sadly, the other side of the same coin is that, contrary to the utopian "people across the globe coming together" ideal which is implicit in the geek world view, the rest of us are every bit as divided as the politicians. You only have to look at the mass of nationalistic dick-swinging that any article like this produces (from both sides) to see that.
Slashdot Mirror
An armed gang carries out a robbery, in the course of which someone is shot dead - all of the gang, I believe (although I dare say that exactly how this is handled varies from country to country) can be charged with the murder.
There's a huge reservoir of goodwill towards Spamhaus because they're fighting the good fight; but every time I read anything on Slashdot about their behaviour, their position seems to be that they should be insulated from any kind of accountability simply because they're on the side of the angels. Let's just admit that it's possible that they are wrong sometimes (or at least that they could be in the future, if you're too much of a fanboy to accept that they ever have been to date); that their being wrong has (would have) real consequences for innocent parties; and that they don't seem to have adequate mechanisms for dealing with that possibility. A touch more humility about their own flawlessness might also have prevented them from making what appears to have been a royal screw-up of their defence in this particular case.
As a matter of interest, do you also believe that European galleries and museums should give the families of holocaust victims the brush-off with regard to the ownership of art looted by the Nazis, on the basis that "it belonged to their grandfathers, that's all"?
Even the "Germany First" strategy was aimed more at preventing German hegemony in Europe than it was against Russia.
Still, the time you saved by not reading that was rewarded by your "insightful" mods from a couple of slashbots, so that's a result, eh?
I suppose that the GP's reference to incest could be taken to imply "blood relatives only", but I took "family" to include the current partners and at least some of the "other intimates". The broader point which I was trying to convey was that the principal danger is "people who are probably already known to the victim" rather than strangers. The "dates" group could, of course, fall into either category.
There are obvious issues about data collection and definition (which are acknowledged and addressed in the report, but spread across too many places to really note in a message board posting - you'll have to skim the whole 132 pages for yourself!), particularly given the nature of the offence and the fact that the British Crime Survey is a self-complete questionnaire; but the BCS is generally held to be the most authoritative of the several different statistical measures of crime in the UK.
While it is well to the right, it's in the mainstream, as opposed to some quasi-fascist rag. The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday are not in the same league as the "Qualities": The Times, Financial Times, Guardian, Telegraph and Independent, but they're much more serious than the "Red Tops" like the Sun and the Star.
The Mail newspapers are very strong on championing the rights of "normal, decent people", which (as you'd expect) is a self-selecting group. Many non-Mail readers (even those who are on the right themselves) see the archetypal Mail reader as the kind of person who thinks that it's all been downhill since the mid-1950s. They don't like gays, feminists or immigrants very much. They really don't like laws which give special treatment to (read: seek to protect against discrimination) any minority group.
To be honest, the Mail isn't the first name that would spring to mind if someone told you that a British newspaper was running an article on the wickedness of sweatshop labour.
Alternatively, you could argue that a class act would stop bleating about how his "can't miss" money-making proposition didn't work out the way he'd hoped and pony up the cash that he'd freely agreed to pay.
Just a thought. I don't really care one way or the other, but it would be nice to see someone standing up for the notion of personal responsibility.
Er, how is Microsoft "a natural monopoly"?
Obviously, though, taking all that into account would have taken far too long to allow much chance of getting first post.
So I'm guessing that you're talking out of your backside.
It all works out beautifully in Euros, though.
Then again, he says that there wasn't and I'm sure that he's a completely unbiased observer, so that's that settled.
Make that "copyrighted". Sorry. Every crappy message board in the world has an "edit" function, except the one run by the uber-geek technomeisters. Go figure...
So can we take it that you agree with prosecuting people who share copywrited works less than 15 years old?
I've bookmarked that site for future reference. Whoever thought I'd ever learn anything useful from Slashdot?
The claim is presumably based on the principle that the fixtures are "created" and therefore subject to copyright. If you accept that, then why should other companies be able to profit from that act of creation without recognising the rights of the creators? I imagine that this would be particularly persuasive in the case of a pools company like Littlewoods, whose entire business model was based on the football fixtures list, yet didn't really put anything back into the game at all (at least not on a corporate level: in fact, members of the Moores family, who own Littlewoods, have been involved in the ownership of both Liverpool and Everton football clubs - Everton are the other big football club in Liverpool, for the benefit of non-UK readers - at various times).
Of course, the contrary point of view would be that compiling a fixture list is simply a cost of doing business for the football industry at large, and that any publication of fixture dates is a form of publicity for which the game should be grateful. This, however, would be inconsistent with the prevailing attitude in football, which is wring every last penny out of anyone they can by whatever means are available.
It may be that the status quo only holds up because no-one has challenged the 1959 case. After all, the sort of media outlet which publishes the entire fixture list for every club (i.e. national newspapers, football magazines and websites etc.) probably regards £6000 (the figure mentioned in the Guardian) as small potatoes compared to the aggravation of going to court. Legal action only ever seems to be threatened against these one-man-and-a-dog sort of operations.
The key difference between the situation here and what MLB is trying to do, though, is that baseball stats are matters of historical fact. Barry Bonds either did or did not hit 73 homers. Kerry Wood did or did not fan 20 Astros in a game. I don't see how that can be "owned".
McVities, the manufacturer, successfully argued at a VAT Tribunal that Jaffa Cakes were cakes (and yes, the "goes soggy" / "goes hard" distinction was a key factor in their victory) and not, as HM Customs & Excise claimed, biscuits partially covered in chocolate.
As a sop to the topic, I would think that we could all agree with the Kansas school board people that Jaffa Cakes are definitely the result of Intelligent Design.
"I now feel unsafe at expressing my discontent at the blairite regime"
If you were paying attention, you'd have noticed that lots of people have voiced their discontent about recent proposed anti-terrorist legislation. They don't seem to feel unsafe doing it. I don't feel unsafe doing it (and I work for the Government). I doubt that there's anything special about you that means that you should feel unsafe doing it, either.
Don't you think that the US government tries to protect the rights of US citizens working abroad?
Specifically, what do you think the guys in Mexico City, Ciudad Juarez, Guadalajara, Hermosillo, Matamoros, Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo, Puerto Vallarta and Tijuana are getting paid for? Only Russia plays host to as many US consulates.
This whole story seems strange to me. Believe me: after 9.00 pm, just about anything goes on British TV (at least as far as swearing is concerned). Very occasionally there's a "moral panic" stirred up by some newspaper or interest group, but generally it's pretty much a free-for-all, as anyone who watched "Springer: the Musical" could testify.
So the scenario is not "I was accused by (e.g.) the speed camera", but "I was accused by [name of minor civic dignitary responsible for this sort of thing]". You can confront him (or her) and ask "on what grounds do you claim that I was speeding/drunk etc." and they will respond that they have the reading from their machine as evidence. The evidential value of the reading is still up for discussion or dispute, but you're not being accused by the machine itself.
FWIW (and IANAL), I suspect that in the UK, at least, you could challenge the accuracy of the machine (in fact, it's been done successfully with some radar guns, at least) but I think that your chances of having the machine pulled apart to demonstrate that every last component worked would be pretty low. I think it would be enough for the prosecution to show that (i) the machine was accurate when properly calibrated; and (ii) it had been properly maintained, calibrated and tested.
I often despair at the way it's expressed, though. There's something distasteful about slashdotters who happily argue that copyright law enforcement is a savage assault on their human rights sounding off about another nation's response to a national trauma which makes anything they're likely to experience in their entire lives look utterly insignificant by comparison.
Anybody with half a brain can understand why non-US politicians are uneasy about the US being in a position to exert overwhelming influence on the internet (and whether they have ever actually used that influence in the past is totally irrelevant: it clearly exists). Equally, anyone should be able to see why US politicians don't want to relinquish that influence - and it's got nothing to do with any moral principle about who paid for it, or anything like that. So both parties have a legitimate interest there.
Sadly, the other side of the same coin is that, contrary to the utopian "people across the globe coming together" ideal which is implicit in the geek world view, the rest of us are every bit as divided as the politicians. You only have to look at the mass of nationalistic dick-swinging that any article like this produces (from both sides) to see that.